Kansas City Royals: Tim Hill is reliever to watch in 2019
Opening Day for the Kansas City Royals is on Thursday and while this season is another rebuilding year, there’s no reason fans can’t get excited about certain players. One such player is reliever Tim Hill.
Tim Hill came out of nowhere last season, but this year, Kansas City Royals fans definitely know who he is. Hill, a left-handed pitcher who the Royals drafted in the 32nd round of the 2014 draft, was one of the better relievers out of the bullpen last year.
His numbers from last year don’t look great, but the rest of the bullpen was bad. Hill ended the season throwing 45.2 innings with an ERA of 4.53 and a 1.314 WHIP. He had two saves and struck out 42 batters as a rookie.
Hill might have been a rookie last year, but he’s not the typical rookie. He’s actually 29 years of age, having just celebrated his birthday in February. The guy might not be the long-term answer in the Royals bullpen, but he seems like a nice guy and it’s hard not to root for him after he kicked the crap out of cancer.
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The Royals bullpen was awful last year and the hope is that it improves this season. After all, the Royals probably don’t go to back-to-back World Series in 2014 and 2015 if not for their dominant bullpen.
They need to get back to that form moving forward and while Tim Hill isn’t going to be the best reliever, he’s going to be a reliable one for the Royals. Once Brad Keller was moved from the bullpen to the rotation last year, Hill was called upon more often and it was obvious that he was getting exhausted from having to be the one putting out fires all the time.
While Kyle Zimmer is going to be the pitcher Royals fans are most intrigued by, at least for bullpen sakes, Tim Hill is someone that isn’t being talked about enough. He, along with Zimmer and Ian Kennedy, have the opportunity to prove themselves in the pen this year, and that’s big.
In case you were wondering, Hill finished spring training with an ERA of 1.23 in 7.1 innings thrown. He looked good, but it’s worth noting that he didn’t always face big league hitters. It was also a small sample size. It’s definitely good that he looked solid in spring training though and hopefully that carries over into the 2019 season!
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How do you think Tim Hill will fare in 2019, Royals fans?