Royals sign 45-year-old lefty Hill to Minor League deal
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HOUSTON -- Rich Hill isn’t done trying to play Major League Baseball just yet.
The 45-year-old left-hander, who was first drafted into pro ball in 1999, has signed a Minor League deal with the Royals, the team announced on Tuesday. Hill will report to the club's Spring Training facility in Surprise, Ariz., and is soon expected to join their Triple-A affiliate, the Omaha Storm Chasers.
Hill played in the Majors last season, making four appearances out of the Red Sox’s bullpen before he was designated for assignment in September. Not long before that, he was coaching his son Brice's Little League team in Milton, Mass.
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Royals assistant general manager Scott Sharp mentioned team pitching performance consultant Dave Wallace as a liaison who helped facilitate the signing.
"He had been throwing, said he felt good,” Sharp said. “We had contacted him actually last year. He wanted a little bit more of a clearer path to the Major Leagues, so we reached out to him this year and said, ‘Hey, look, we have an opportunity to start in Triple-A. We don't know if there's a path to the Major Leagues at all.’ But he wants to continue to pitch, so we felt like it was a good spot.”
Even in his mid-40s, after pitching in 386 big league games and appearing in at least one MLB game in each of the past 20 seasons, Hill showed this past fall that he can still pitch effectively. He threw four shutout innings, gave up one hit and struck out five batters for Team USA against Team Japan in the Premier12 super-round in Tokyo last November.
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"I love Rich,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “I was with him for a year in Tampa. It's remarkable that he's still pitching, that he still has the drive to want to do it and go to Triple-A and continue to compete.
“That's one thing that stands out about him -- he is the ultimate competitor. Nobody wants to win more than that guy. Nobody is more fiery than he is.”
Hill, who broke into the bigs with the Cubs in 2005, owns a 4.01 career ERA with 1,428 strikeouts over 1,409 MLB innings. He has pitched for 13 franchises, and if he makes it back to The Show with the Royals, Hill will join Edwin Jackson as the only two players to play for 14 Major League teams.
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Two members of Kansas City’s rotation, Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo, are former teammates of Hill.
“I was always trying to pick his brain because of his service time and experiences that he's been through,” said Wacha, whose career intersected with Hill’s with the 2021 Rays, 2022 Red Sox and 2023 Padres. “Just talking grips and stuff and what he tries to do whenever he's spinning the ball.
“He's definitely one of those guys that loves this game and going out there and competing, and I love that he's still doing it.”
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Hill also pitched for the Mets in 2021, and that’s where his path crossed with Lugo’s.
“He's a great clubhouse guy and a great teammate,” Lugo said. “He helped me out a lot a couple years ago talking about some different pitch shapes. He's just a joy to be around.”
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Sharp said he believes Hill would be open to any role should he make it to Kansas City. And Lugo would welcome his presence.
“He's really good with younger guys, and he's always a person that you can talk to,” Lugo said. “He brings the energy every day. Kind of a similar personality to Salvador [Perez].”