No longer the king of the hill

It's a great day for the Newark Bears: The defending Atlantic League champions have re-signed Bobby Hill.

No, not the kid from King of the Hill.



No, not Renko's partner from Hill Street Blues.



This is the Bobby Hill who was drafted by the White Sox in the second round of the 1999 amateur draft, but super agent Scott Boras told him to hold out and instead play the 2000 season as a shortstop with the Newark Bears. Hill, a 22-year-old switch-hitter, hit .326 with a .442 OBP and stole a franchise-record 81 bases. He also had 13 home runs and 82 RBIs.

As I've mentioned here before, I saw Hill play a few times that year. Now, the Atlantic League isn't anywhere near the majors -- it's mostly has-beens, could'a-beens and never-wuzzes. So the level of talent wasn't great, but still, Hill was just on another planet. If you've played beer league softball, you know how you can spot the ringer 'cause he's the one guy shows up wearing actual baseball pants? Well, in the Atlantic League that year, Hill was that guy. Everyone else comes up to the plate hacking and slashing; he'd be the guy taking a strike and fouling off tough pitches and holding up on sliders in the dirt and driving the ball the other way. He could run, he could hit, he could field. You just knew he'd be a star.

The following year, Hill was drafted by the Cubs and eventually signed with them. He hit .301 (.394 OBP) with 20 SBs in Double-A; in 2002, he hit .280 (.367 OBP) with 29 SB in Triple-A, got promoted to the majors and hit .253 (.327 OBP) in 190 ABs as a second baseman. But the Cubs sent him back to Triple-A in 2003, where he hit .269 (.339 OBP), then near the end of the season traded him (as the player to be named later) in the deal that landed them Aramis Ramirez.

Hill played almost all of 2004 in the majors, hitting .266 with a .353 OBP in 233 ABs (but 126 games) for the Pirates playing second and third. You'd think that'd be enough to stick the following year, but you don't know the Pirates. He again bounced between Triple-A and the majors in 2005, hitting .241 (.336 OBP) in Triple-A and .269 (.343 OBP) in the bigs. Then he got traded to the Padres -- for a pitcher named Clayton Hamilton -- and spent all of 2006 in the minors. He hit .282 with a .396 OBP, but the Padres never called him up. They released him at the end of the year and he missed all of 2007 after undergoing back surgery.

I think it's a smart move for Hill. Maybe GMs don't like what happened with Boras after the '99 draft. Maybe Hill has fungus on his shower shoes. Or maybe they're just more comfortable with guys like Mark Bellhorn - a guy ahead of him on the depth chart with the Cubs and the Padres, even though Bells hit .209 in '03 and .190 in '06.

Whatever the reason, it seems obvious he wasn't going to get a chance to make the bigs, even as a utilityman, despite a respectable MLB career batting average of .262 (.343 OBP) in 523 AB, and .277 (.367 OBP) in 1,424 AB in the minors. Now he's 30, and it seems most of his speed has left him, and who knows if he can still play short. The Bears might be his last chance to showcase what's left of his skills and maybe get a ticket back to the big leagues.

I'm hoping to see him in Newark this summer and see something of the kid who looked like a future star just eight years ago. Even if it's just a glimpse.

Hope springs eternal...

...or should that be, spring's eternal hopes?

This time of year there are always so many stories about how pitchers are throwing great and looking great and feeling great. And if you're a geek like me hungry for any kind of fantasy baseball insight, I love reading that Johnny Damon says he had a great off-season and Jose Reyes says he's going to be more serious and Eric Chavez says he's finally healthy again.

I know 99 percent of these stories are sportswriters looking to fill up column inches before the spring training games start. There's nothing to do right now but talk to players and what are they going to say? "I spent the off-season eating pizza and ice cream. Really! There's this place by my house where you can get ice cream as a topping."

Here's my favorite story from today:

Girardi caught Kyle Farnsworth 73 times when both were with the Chicago Cubs from 2000 to 2002, and both think their prior relationship could help Farnsworth bounce back after two shaky seasons.

"He was kind of a mentor to me when I was coming up as a young player," Farnsworth said. "So I think it's going to be a good time.

"He looked out for me. ... He knows how to get the best out of me."

Girardi said he believes in Farnsworth, who has a 4.57 ERA as a Yankee.

"The first thing is, I believe he's got good stuff," Girardi said, "because I've seen it first-hand, and I believe he still has it."

What they didn't tell you: Farnsie had a 2.74 ERA and 1.15 WHIP with the Cubs in '01... but in the '00 and '02 versions, he combined for a 6.77 ERA and 1.75 WHIP. So the much-celebrated Farnsworth/Girardi years produced a 5.16 ERA, which is more than a half-run worse than what he's done in two years as a Yankee!

The Beauty of Baseball, Part 2 The Phenom

One amazing thing about baseball is you can live in the now, breathing the excitement of each pitch. However, you can also plan your fandom for the future. Who will the next big star be in Major League Baseball? Who will the next big star be for my team?

This young man could very easily be in the starting rotation for the New York Yankees in 2009. He is young, he is talented, he is half Iranian half Japanese and I hope he is pitching in New York sooner, rather than later. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the great Yu Darvish.

Kennesaw Mountain Landis at steroids hearing?

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't the guy behind Brian McNamee look sort of familiar?



A little bit like this guy, no?

Schilling's shoulder

I guess whatever miraculous healing power Curt Schilling used on his ankle doesn't work for shoulders.

Or maybe they test for it now.

Either way, it looks like Schilling is out until at least the All-Star Break, if not the year. Or his career could be over.

I have two reasons to hate Schilling - 2001 World Series, 2004 ALCS. But I also have two reasons not to hate him - I like that he has a game design company (yes, I'm a geek), and I like that he has done so much to fight ALS, even naming his son Gehrig.

So on balance those cancel out.

No, not really. Fuck him and his ketchup-leaking ankle. Why couldn't anyone try to drop a bunt on that pudgy gimp? Ridiculous. But at least I'll be able to hate him a lot less if his career is over.

What I'm really wondering today is how Red Sox fans feel about him right now. They all loved him and his bloody sock. They loved his trash-talking on his blog and Sons of Sam Horn. But you have to wonder how they would have gone about their business this off-season if they'd known they might be without Schilling this year.

The Red Sox certainly wouldn't have signed Schilling to that $8 million one-year contract if they knew his shoulder tendon looked like "three strands of spaghetti." (What's it supposed to look like, rigatoni?) And even if they had signed him to a bargain-basement contract, they could have insisted on surgery back in November.

But would they have been more aggressive in going after Johan Santana, Erik Bedard or Dan Haren?

Red Sox fans are saying the loss of Schilling is no big deal, they only gave him 150 innings and 9 wins last year. But there's a big difference between having a starting rotation of four veterans and one rookie, and three veterans and two rookies - especially when one of those veterans is Tim Wakefield, who also battled shoulder problems last year. Josh Beckett is unquestionably an ace, and Daisuke Matsuzaka should be better after adjusting to the league last year. But after that? They can turn within and try Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Devern Hansack and/or Kyle Snyder. The Yankees tried the rookie-of-the-month rotation the first half of last year and it didn't work so well, so good luck with that.

More likely they'll trade for a veteran - maybe Joe Blanton, but you know Billy Beane isn't going to just give him away - or sign whoever is still out there. Bartolo Colon, Kris Benson, Steve Trachsel, Shawn Chacon... Yeah, it's ugly.

I don't want to oversell the loss of Schilling - no one is suggesting you can now write the Red Sox off. But it certainly changes the dynamic heading into 2008. And if I was a Red Sox fan, I'd rather have known about Schilling in November, instead of a week before pitchers and catchers report.