Name That Pitcher: Present Rich Hill or Peak Max Scherzer?

As I begin writing this post, the three most-searched names in the FanGraphs search bar are Jake Arrieta, Rich Hill, and Clayton Kershaw, or, the three greatest pitchers in baseball.

I kid. Mostly. Hill faced a righty-heavy Tigers lineup in Detroit last night and threw seven shutout innings while striking out eight, walking none, and allowing just four hits. It’s the kind of start that’s become commonplace for him since September of last year, and it’s the kind of start that, if commonplace, makes you one of the best pitchers in baseball. I don’t know if Rich Hill is actually one of the best pitchers in baseball. I don’t think he is, but that’s kind of what this is all about — Rich Hill is making us think now.

Last year, we saw the four starts, and they were amazing, and we reconsidered everything we knew about baseball, and then the playoffs happened, and the offseason happened, and six months went by, and it seemed like more than enough time for 36-year-old, injury-riddled, never-done-anything-remotely-like-this-before Rich Hill to lose everything he gained during those four starts in Boston. That’s the fear with any player who ends a season on a hot stretch, that whatever that hot player had in September will have worn off by next April. That fear felt especially appropriate in this particular scenario, given Hill’s history.

And then Spring Training happened, and Hill was awful. And then he was forced into an emergency Opening Day start when Sonny Gray fell ill, and Hill only lasted 2.2 innings. At that point, it was over. Hill was cooked. Whatever happened at the end of 2015 was a total fluke, a gift from above, and Rich Hill was back to being Rich Hill.

And then he rattled off another four-start stretch that rivaled 2015’s. Back to Rich Hill. Thirty-four strikeouts in in 23 innings, eight walks, five earned runs. Over Clayton Kershaw’s last nine starts, he has a 1.85 FIP, and over Hill’s nine starts during that same time period, Hill has the better strikeout rate, the better home-run rate, the better ground-ball rate, and the better ERA.

So I wanted to play a little game. Hill has been Kershaw’s equal since September of last year, but it’s not exactly a fair comparison, because Hill is (probably) pitching at the absolute peak of his career, and we’ve just compared him to a less-than-peak (but still amazing) Kershaw. To make a truly fair comparison, we need to go peak against peak. In the interest of full disclosure, I originally thought this might work with Kershaw, but then I looked at Kershaw’s best nine-starts stretches and realized how foolish I am. Kershaw isn’t a human. But Max Scherzer is a human! And also one of the best, I don’t know, five pitchers in baseball? Based on those two statements alone, he became our new subject. Let’s play a guessing game, pitting Scherzer’s career-best nine-start runs in particular statistical categories vs. Hill’s last nine starts. Click the .gif below each question to reveal the answer.

The point isn’t that Scherzer won three to two. The point is that you can’t really tell whether Max Scherzer has ever been better over a nine-start run than Rich Hill has been. And, just as comparing peak Hill to recent Kershaw is an unfair comparison, picking each of Scherzer’s best nine-start stretches in these categories and comparing them to Hill is equally unfair, because Hill has done all these things at once, whereas Scherzer’s peaks in certain statistical categories have come at different times.

So I made this table:

The top row is a hypothetical amalgamation of the Scherzer stats used in our guessing game above. The middle row is Scherzer’s best actual nine-game run (based on ERA, FIP and xFIP), which occurred late in the 2014 season. The bottom row is the last nine starts we’ve seen from Rich Hill. The last nine starts we’ve seen from Rich Hill are as good as anything Max Scherzer’s ever done in the same amount of time.

If you’re a listener of Baseball Prospectus’ Effectively Wild podcast, you’ll know there’s been a running joke of how co-host Sam Miller’s market valuation of Hill can fluctuate by millions — sometimes tens of millions — of dollars, after each start. Hill received one year and $6 million from Oakland in real life. At the beginning of the offseason, Miller claimed to be willing to go as high as three years and upward of $30 million. After Hill’s one Opening Day start, Miller came all the way down to $20 million. While Miller’s remarks are likely somewhat tongue-in-cheek, they actually mirror how the projections are reacting. Let’s compare preseason projections with current rest-of-season projections after three weeks and see whose estimated true-talent level has most improved:

Largest improvement in projected ERA, preseason to now

1. Rich Hill, -.40 (4.17 to 3.77)
2. Noah Syndergaard, -.23 (3.12 to 2.89)
3. Drew Smyly, -.18 (3.47 to 3.29)
4. Taijuan Walker, -.18 (4.05 to 3.87)
5. Jerad Eickhoff, -.18 (4.38 to 4.20)

After just four or five starts, the projections don’t typically vary their forecast of a player too wildly. Smyly, Walker, and Eickhoff are three of the most improved pitchers by the projections after three weeks, and their estimated true-talent ERA has dropped by less than two-tenths of a run. Syndergaard’s improvement is exceptional. Hill’s improvement dwarfs Syndergaard’s, by nearly double the amount. How about FIP?

Largest improvement in projected FIP, preseason to now

1. Rich Hill, -.43 (4.18 to 3.75)
2. Noah Syndergaard, -.29 (3.02 to 2.73)
3. Taijuan Walker, -.21 (3.98 to 3.77)
4. Matt Moore, -.21 (4.25 to 4.04)
5. Drew Smyly, -.20 (3.70 to 3.50)

Same thing. After just five starts, one of which was a clunker, the projections have improved Hill’s estimated true-talent level by nearly half a run. Through this lens, he’s the most improved player in baseball. And he isn’t doing anything particularly different than last year. He’s still striking out a third of all batters faced while keeping the walks down. He’s still getting the ball on the ground in half of the balls in play against him and keeping the ones in the air inside the park. His fastball has picked up some spin, and he’s still blowing it past hitters like few other pitchers can. His curveball has picked up some spin, too, and he’s going to it more.

The profile is still largely the same: dominant. It’s just that he’s doubled down on last year’s sample, and seeing him repeat those four starts is about all we needed to feel confident that The Rich Hill Breakout could be legitimate. Not that he’s going to continue being Peak Max Scherzer, but the projections have already adjusted, and already, Rich Hill has a better projected rest-of-season ERA+FIP than Cole Hamels and Marcus Stroman. And with each subsequent Peak Max Scherzer start, Hill gets closer to the real deal.