Orioles - Acquired Hill

Sorry about the lack of entries lately - I've been trying to get caught up on projections.

This is exactly the type of move the Orioles should be making. There are very good reasons to think that Rich Hill will be a terrible major league pitcher in 2009, but the Orioles rotation is made up of Jeremy Guthrie and terrible major league pitchers, so the consequences of Hill continuing to have serious command issues are relatively minimal for a team in Baltimore's position. If Hill doesn't rebound, let's say he throws 100 innings with an ERA of 7.00. Given that the alternative would be a player that will probably throw 100 innings with an ERA of 6.00, we're only talking about the loss of a win or so. The Orioles go from a 72-win team to a 71-win team. Whoop de doo.

But what if Hill does turn it around, which is at least a possibility? The team gets Hill for 4 years and if he does bounce all the way back, that's a ridiculous deal considering how small the risk is. Even if he only bounces back enough to be a 90 ERA+ pitcher, with an ERA around 5.00, he still is an upgrade over what the Orioles have.

From the Cubs point of view, they didn't really have a choice other than to dump Hill. Hill's out of minor league options and the Cubs, the clear favorite in the NL Central (and I'd probably argue the NL as well), don't have the room in the rotation or the inclination to let Hill get his brains bashed in while walking a batter a frame.

I'm not going to hazard a projection here, for obvious reasons.