Boston Red Sox's Rich Hill Trying To Make It As A Reliever

Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein has a lot to work to do this offseason. He has to decide whether or not to bring back David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre, or Victor Martinez. He also has to figure out a way to fix the underbelly of the Red Sox bullpen.

Coming into the 2010 season, the Red Sox were supposed to have one of the best bullpens in the American League. Instead, outside of Daniel Bard, they had one of the worst.

Jonathan Papelbon continued to regress, Hideki Okajima was no longer automatic, and Manny Delcarmen and Ramon Ramirez were so bad they were shipped out of town. Scott Atchison was nothing to write home about either.

Epstein could look into free agent relievers like Scott Downs or Pedro Feliciano, but he might have found an internal option at the end of this season. That internal option is LHP Rich Hill.

Since 2006, Hill made 35 starts in the major leagues and 34 of them were as a reliever. He had a very solid 2007 season with the Chicago Cubs, in which he went 11-8 with a 3.92 ERA, a 1.20 WHIP, and K’d 8.4/9. Since then, however, Hill has really struggled with his control and has bounced around from the Cubs to the Baltimore Orioles to the St. Louis Cardinals and now to the Red Sox.

Now the Red Sox are doing something with Hill that no team has tried to do with him at the major league level—turn him into a full-time reliever. They have even gone so far to completely switch his release point to try to make him tougher on left-handed batters.

Take a look at Hill’s release point from a start in July of 2009 versus his release point from his relief appearance against the New York Yankees yesterday.

Hill release point 2009

Hill release point 2010

Outside of two pitches, Hill’s release point has drastically changed from 2009 to 2010. He throws more three-quarters now than the over-the-top delivery that he threw last year.

The two pitches that Hill did throw at his 2009 release point were both curveballs to Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira. He is going to have to switch that up or scouts and hitters are going to pick up on that.

Hill no longer throws a wicked 12-to-6 hook like he did with the Cubs, but now features more of a sweeping curve, which he used to strike out Brett Gardner.

So far the full-time transition to the bullpen has worked for Hill. In five appearances, Hill hasn’t allowed a run and hasn’t walked anyone, while striking out three in four innings.

That is of course a small sample size, but once again give the Red Sox organization credit for thinking outside the box with Hill. He could become a valuable piece of the Boston bullpen in 2011.

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