Aaron Hills' Skillz

[WillRoy]

I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on Aaron Hill.

I recently acquired him by dealing away Jason Bartlett (Both Bartlett and Hill were at similar salaries, about $12) in a keeper league.

Nevermind the league conditions and such. Aaron Hill is beginning to scare me the more I delve into his history even including last year. I hate saying this about a guy who is only 27 but could he be a one year wonder?

829 OPS BUT 36 HR and 37 DBL's.

However, he also led the league with 680-some At Bats!!! And 734 Plate appearances! (The guy doesn't walk much...).

That's a TON of at-bats. I think what some analysis by the mainstream pundits especially miss is that the connection between At-Bats and Numbers.

I'm sure this is obvious but even in my mind 36 HR for a 2nd baseman gets me all psyched up like Pavlov's dogs .

I can certainly believe he's shown some skill growth in his Power with age and such. But I can't shake the feeling that this bell is a fraud.

[Todd Zola]

Fraud? No.

A perennial 35+ HR hitter? No.

After the 2007 season, Hill was someone that was worthy of being on one's radar, as he was showing modest skills growth (CT, BB%, HR/FB).

Then he got off to a SLOW start in '08, followed by being felled by a concussion, depriving him of a chance to recover.

So last season, many of us again had him on our radar as being an undervalued 2B/MI, likely to be overlooked.

But NO ONE expected the power spike we saw.

And we are not likely to see it again.

The OP brings up an EXCELLENT point in that other than Ichiro and perhaps Jeter, expecting that many plate appearances is a big stretch. So right off the bat, his counting stats should take a hit.

Let's play a game, keep everything the same and regress his HR/FB. Last season, he hit 241 FB and had a HR/FB of 14.9%.

241 x .149 = 36.

in 2007, it was 8.6%

241 x .086 = 21

Plug in whatever % you want. Hill is likely to come down from 14.1 but be above 8.6. I'll split the difference, which is 11.4% leading to 27 HR. Take away a couple from fewer AB and 25 seems like a reasonable number for Hill in 2010.