Aaron Hill in the deep valley

<div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not a whole lot of good things have happened for the Arizona Diamondbacks this season. Currently, the team is in last place in the National League West behind the equally disappointing Rockies by a half a game. While there have been many reasons for the stumbling of the Diamondbacks this season, <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hillaa01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hillaa01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Aaron Hill</a></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> seems to have become one of the real symbols of a team's fall from respectability. This Hill is in a deep valley.</span></span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aaron Hill has had a weird career, hasn't he? His offense over the years, if plotted on a graph would be up and down in nearly every season he has played. He is one guy where you cannot seem to pin a baseline. His career averages have nothing in common with what he achieves from year to year.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #a7a7a7; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; max-width: 594px; min-width: 300px; width: 100%;"><div style="height: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 70.538721% 0 49px 0; position: relative; width: 100%;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="468" scrolling="no" src="//embed.gettyimages.com/embed/450889368?et=agmiyBz_TqxEpiN2EDyhFw&sig=xV7XLrEtS8YvmmDgj1YSBFJlV6qjirJK4LMJAbpvQe0=" style="display: inline-block; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; top: 0; width: 100%;" width="594"></iframe></div><div style="margin: 0;"></div><div style="margin: 4px 0 0 10px; padding: 0; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/450889368" style="border: none; color: #a7a7a7; display: inline-block; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">#450889368</a> / <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/" style="border: none; color: #a7a7a7; display: inline-block; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">gettyimages.com</a></div></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He went from a star with the Blue Jays with an .829 OPS and a .212 ISO in 2009 to a .665 OPS the following season. And just two years ago with the Diamondbacks, Hill put together an .882 OPS with a .220 ISO. His 2012 season is just a dream now that Hill's OPS in 2014 is .639 with an ISO of .122.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While Hill's results went up and down through the years, some of his peripherals remained fairly constant including his walk and strikeout rates and batted ball rates (except for 2010 when he couldn't hit a line drive to save himself). But this year, even some of those constants are off. The bottom line is that at the age of 32, Aaron Hill has really bottomed out and is having a negative season.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let's look at some of those underlying peripherals to see where Hill has fallen. The first striking example is Aaron Hill's walk rate. Hill has never been a patient hitter. His walk rates have hovered between a 6-8% range with his career average being 6.7%. That is a weakness to his game that has been a constant.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, this year, this weakness has turned to a lifeblood sucking low. His current walk rate is only 4.7%. Last season, when Hill was injured for much of the season, he compiled 29 walks in 327 plate appearances. This year so far, Hill has walked only 15 times in 344 plate appearances.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because of his lack of walks, his disappointing .241 batting average is compounded into a .275 on-based percentage this season after finishing last year at .356. The Diamondbacks are 11th of 15 NLteams in team on-base percentage. Hill again is a major symbol of that team failure.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While Hill's walk rate is historically low for him, his strikeout rate is historically high. Hill's strikeout rate has ranged between 10.1% his first season to a high of 15.5% his second season. His average is 13.4%. This season, Hill's strikeout rate is 18.3%, easily the highest of his career.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you were to look at his success rate against certain pitches over the years, you can see that Hill had success against the fastball in his career and he has always hit the curve ball well.  His success against all other pitches varies from year to year. This season, Aaron Hill does not have a positive value against any pitch type. That's not a good thing at all.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The troubling part of Hill's season (other than all the other reasons mentioned) is that each month has gotten progressively worse. His monthly OPS totals starting in April were: .722, .700, .549 and .472 so far this month. His BABIP had remained fairly static in the mid-.270 range but has fallen to .206 his month, so some bad luck could be involved in July.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Is Aaron Hill the latest of a list of second basemen who seem to hit the 32 age and lose it? Or can he bounce back again to be a productive player? Hill's defense has also deteriorated and his WAR is at -0.7 at Fangraphs and -0.9 for baseball-reference.com.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Those valuations are not good news to an Arizona team that has $24 million combined invested in Hill's 2015 and 2015 seasons. His current results and relatively high salary would make it difficult for the Diamondbacks to trade him for any kind of value, if at all.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Diamondbacks have had a really tough season and the bloom is off the rose for a team that made the post season just two seasons ago. And one of the big symbols of the woes this team has faced in 2014 is Aaron Hill. It will remain to be seen if the player or the team can bounce back from such a season.</span></div>

Aaron Hill in the deep valley

Not a whole lot of good things have happened for the Arizona Diamondbacks this season. Currently, the team is in last place in the National ...

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Aaron Hill has had a great season

<div style="text-align: justify;">What a shame it is when a player has a fantastic season for a team that has never been in serious contention in a season. <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hillaa01.shtml?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker&utm_campaign=Linker" target="_blank">Aaron Hill</a></strong> has had such a season for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He did not make the All Star Team. His team is never considered for national television because they simply have not been a factor this season after winning their division last season. If you hear about the Diamondbacks at all, it is about whether or not the team will trade away its young superstar right fielder. And that is too bad because Aaron Hill has easily had the best season of his career.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hill has played alongside five different shortstops. But he has manned his position steadily all season. His fielding metrics are good. His offense has been terrific. As of right now, with a week left in the season, Aaron Hill has been the second best second baseman in all of baseball. Only Cano is rated higher. Aaron Hill has had a better season than Pedroia. He has been way better than Espinosa, Phillips, Kendrick, Murphy, Weeks, Kinsler and any other second baseman you want to talk about.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But you might say that Hill plays in Arizona, a nice place to hit with its dry, hot air that helps a ball carry. Yes, he has a .910 OPS in Arizona. But he also has an .844 OPS on the road and that is not shabby by any means. As a right-handed batter, he has an .888 OPS against right-handed pitching and an .860 OPS against left-handed pitching. Throw anything you want at him and he's been good.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And this is a former Number One draft pick the Blue Jays ran out of town. And who is to blame them, really? Yeah, he had a fantastic 2009 season. That season, he had 195 hits with 36 homers, 37 doubles, 103 runs scored and 108 runs batted in. It looked like he had come into his own as a star player in baseball. Heck, he came in 12th in MVP voting. And then 2010 happened.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Aaron Hill lost the ability to hit in 2010. His final triple slash line that season was .205/.271/.394. Ugh! It was awful. He still hit 26 homers, but everything else was a disaster. He did not bounce back for the Blue Jays in 2011 either. After 108 games with that team in 2011, his OPS was actually ten points lower than his paltry .665 for 2009. And his power had gone away as he hit only eight homers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fortunately for Hill, the Diamondbacks had that Cinderella season a year ago and weren't overly happy with Johnson at second. They wanted a little more zip at the position and traded Johnson to the Blue Jays in a trade deadline deal for Hill and McDonald. Hill responded with a good run down the stretch for the Diamondbacks as his .878 OPS in those 33 games did much to help the Diamondbacks. He then put an .879 OPS together in the series loss to the Brewers in the playoffs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So basically, Aaron Hill has played a season and a third for the Diamondbacks and his OPS has remained as steady as anything. .878 down the stretch last season, .879 in the playoffs and now .876 this season. That gives every indication of not being a fluke.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This season, Hill has the most walks of his career and his highest walk percentage. He has hit 40 doubles to go with six triples and 24 homers. His OPS+ is the highest of his career. His wOBA is the highest of his career. Even his ISO is higher this year than his big season of 2009. His swinging strike percentage is the lowest of his career. Everything has come together for Aaron Hill this season.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hill is only 30 years old. What if 2009 and this season are the real Hill and 2010 and 2011 were just a funk or a lack of adjustments to what pitchers were doing, or an undetected flaw in his mechanics or an undisclosed injury? Hill could not repeat what he did in 2009. He will need to show that he can repeat his 2012. But for this season at least, he has been a terrific player, the second best second baseman in baseball, all without a lot of fanfare or team success. A tip of the coke glass to you, Mr. Hill. </div>

Aaron Hill has had a great season

What a shame it is when a player has a fantastic season for a team that has never been in serious contention in a season. Aaron Hill has h...

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