Rich Hill Fits the Athletics Perfectly

When Dave Cameron wrote up the Athletics’ signing of Rich Hill yesterday, he titled it “A’s Sign Rich Hill, Because Of Course They Do.” He focused more on the fact that Hill was a resurgent pitcher that represented a low-risk, high-reward, low-money signing — a bit like Scott Kazmir before the 2014 season. That makes a lot of sense, given Oakland’s budget constraints and past practices.

There’s another way Hill is the perfect major league acquisition for the Athletics, though. He’s a fastball/curve guy with an iffy changeup. He’ll fit right in.

The team’s ace is Sonny Gray, who has a lifetime whiff rate on his changeup that is 30% worse than league average. And it’s the team who employed Brett Anderson (whose change is 60% worse than average) and then traded him for Drew Pomeranz (65% worse) in 2013. It’s the club that picked up Josh Lindblom (30% worse) in the Michael Choice trade. That claimed Joe Savery (45% worse) before the 2014 season. And even whose big in-season pickup in 2014 — Jon Lester — was using his above-average change less when they got him.

When they traded Josh Donaldson following the 2014 season, they got a lefty (Sean Nolin) whose change has so far gotten a little more than half the whiffs of an average changeup. Even Kendall Graveman, who was also in that deal, has a change has been almost 20% worse than average. They traded Derek Norris for Jesse Hahn (30% worse). In the Jeff Samardzija deal, they received Chris Bassitt among other pieces, and his changeup gets 65% fewer whiffs than league average. The biggest prospect they picked up last year — Sean Manaea — might not have a great change, even while featuring excellent velocity and a wicked slider.

There’s a little bit of cherry-picking here. Obviously this team had Scott Kazmir and his changepiece. They acquired Aaron Brooks, who might only have a changeup. But where there’s smoke there’s fire, and this team actually signed their patron saint for a swan song last year when they picked up Barry Zito.

Much like Zito never had a great change (10% worse than league average in whiffs), the A’s have followed suit as a team. Take a look at how Oakland’s changeups ranked in baseball last year by two key rates.

2015 Changeup Outcomes by Team

Team	Count	Swinging Strike Rate	Ground-Ball Rate
Cubs	1844	18.1%	47.5%
Indians	2334	18.0%	52.7%
Brewers	1964	17.8%	47.2%
Padres	2497	17.1%	45.4%
Royals	3304	16.9%	47.2%
Red Sox	3063	16.9%	46.8%
Pirates	2559	16.9%	51.1%
Nationals	1901	16.6%	52.1%
Diamondbacks	3638	16.6%	47.9%
Astros	2943	16.4%	52.5%
Rays	2069	16.4%	49.6%
Rockies	3022	16.2%	48.6%
White Sox	2952	16.2%	46.1%
Yankees	2112	16.1%	51.4%
Dodgers	2242	15.7%	55.8%
Rangers	2820	15.6%	46.3%
Cardinals	2540	15.5%	50.1%
Twins	2138	15.4%	50.4%
Blue Jays	3260	15.4%	44.5%
Mets	2761	15.2%	48.8%
Marlins	1576	15.2%	48.6%
Mariners	2524	14.6%	49.9%
Angels	3616	14.1%	43.3%
Reds	1689	13.9%	43.1%
Tigers	1868	12.9%	42.4%
Orioles	1493	12.7%	48.6%
Braves	1482	12.3%	44.4%
Phillies	2173	12.1%	46.1%
Athletics	2197	11.9%	53.5%
Giants	1942	11.1%	46.5%

SOURCE: PITCHf/x

Only the Giants had a worse whiff rate on their changeups last season. Which is what might happen when you acquire a bunch of players with bad changeups. Funny how that works.

But this isn’t an organization that hates the changeup. Dan Straily once talked about how the organization preached the pitch to him — his pitching coordinator helped him try out 17 different grips on the way to finding the right one. The Athletics actually threatened small fines if he didn’t throw 15 in a game in the minor leagues. They want their young pitchers working on the changeup.

There could be a philosophical thing going on with the change. You can use the pitch as a super-sinker for ground balls, too. Re-sort that list above for ground-ball rate and the A’s zoom to second in baseball. It could be that they want their pitchers using the change for the grounder. Rich Hill, unsurprisingly, has a change that has gotten above-average grounders for his career and 50% more grounders than the league last season.

This approach with the change doesn’t seem to have hurt their results in the past season. The Athletics had the most neutral platoon split in baseball last season when it comes to FIP. By ERA, they were still in the middle third, though their ERA against righties was a little bit worse than it was against lefties. That isn’t a team that you would say is suffering platoon problems because they’ve got bad changeups.

And that’s because not every pitcher needs a changeup, or at least not a changeup that can get tons of whiffs. The big curve has reverse platoon splits, and we’ve seen tons of big curves from the Athletics.

2015 Curveball Outcomes by Team

Team	Count	avg(Pfx_z)	Velocity	swSTR	GB%
Astros	2554	-7.4	75.6	13.3%	51.2%
Dodgers	2513	-7.3	77.1	11.9%	48.2%
Athletics	2003	-7.1	76.1	12.9%	48.1%
Brewers	2006	-6.9	76.3	11.8%	48.3%
Nationals	2193	-6.1	79.0	12.5%	54.3%
Pirates	1291	-6.0	78.6	13.7%	48.9%
Mariners	2252	-6.0	77.9	12.6%	52.5%
Phillies	1247	-5.6	76.7	13.7%	39.9%
Twins	1588	-5.5	77.3	10.6%	50.2%
Red Sox	2353	-5.4	76.3	9.0%	48.5%
Cubs	2412	-5.3	79.1	14.8%	42.2%
Blue Jays	1333	-5.2	77.8	11.9%	56.7%
Diamondbacks	1584	-5.2	77.5	11.9%	48.2%
Padres	902	-5.1	78.3	10.5%	52.0%
Yankees	1689	-5.1	78.8	9.3%	50.4%
Reds	1217	-5.0	77.8	12.2%	42.9%
Angels	1561	-4.9	73.3	13.5%	42.4%
Rangers	2627	-4.9	78.4	12.2%	50.6%
Braves	1560	-4.8	76.5	10.4%	43.0%
Tigers	1985	-4.8	77.2	8.9%	52.3%
Royals	2039	-4.6	80.4	12.7%	48.9%
Orioles	853	-4.5	76.2	5.9%	47.8%
Indians	1838	-4.0	80.4	18.3%	49.0%
Giants	2990	-3.9	76.6	14.6%	43.2%
Mets	2217	-3.7	79.4	13.8%	45.6%
Cardinals	2198	-3.5	79.3	11.1%	46.4%
Rockies	1686	-3.2	78.3	13.5%	43.2%
Rays	1102	-3.2	78.7	13.7%	53.8%
Marlins	1122	-2.8	80.6	14.7%	44.4%
White Sox	1726	-2.2	78.4	13.2%	47.3%

SOURCE: PITCHf/x

Pfx_z = drop, in inches
swSTR = swinging strike rate

The Athletics’ curveballs had the third-biggest drop in baseball, on average. They also got above-average whiffs on the pitch while getting fewer ground balls than average. And they did well with the curve despite having the third-slowest curves in baseball — and velocity is good for curves.

By throwing the big round-house curve, the Athletics have avoided bad platoon splits despite featuring changeups incapable of garnering whiffs. Use the change as a super-sinker, develop a second breaking pitch, and then your curveball-throwing undervalued acquisition suddenly looks like a complete pitcher. This describes the process Sonny Gray went through this year, at least. It could be the road map for their new pitchers in the coming years, too.

This approach to pitcher acquisition looks like more zigging when the rest of baseball is zagging. Maybe trading away Tyson Ross in 2012 opened their eyes to the fact that bad changeup pitchers were undervalued. Because it really looks like they’ve spent the last few years picking up bad changeup pitchers with good, big curveballs. And Rich Hill fits that description as much as the rest of the green and gold.