Twins beef up starting pitching with Homer Bailey, Rich Hill
It took a while, but the Twins have upgraded the starting rotation by signing right-hander Homer Bailey and left-hander Rich Hill.
Terms haven't been released, but Twins communications director Dustin Morse tweeted that both pitchers signed for the 2020 season. Hill, expected to miss the start of the season as he recovers from an injury, will eventually help form a starting staff that features Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi, Michael Pineda and Bailey.
Bailey, 33, was traded by the Royals to the Athletics last season. In all, he tossed 163.1 innings in 31 starts with a 4.57 ERA. But he was a better with Oakland, owning a 4.30 ERA in 13 starts, including 68 strikeouts in 73.1 innings.
More importantly, he had a 3.65 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) with the A's. FIP is a fancy stat where when it is lower than a pitcher's ERA, as is the case with Bailey, it indicates that the pitcher is getting bad luck on balls put in play.
There has been a ton of talk about Bailey being a potential underrated acquisition as his success in Oakland coincided with Bailey throwing his split-finger fastball more often. He used that pitch a career-high 26.4 percent and batters hit just .182 against it while swinging and missing 38.2 percent of the time.
Hill, who turns 40 Mar. 11, had a 2.60 ERA through 10 starts to start the 2019 season with the Dodgers before suffering a flexor tendon strain in his left elbow. He returned Sept. 12 only re-aggravate a knee injury.
Hill is expected to miss at least the first two months of the 2020 season. That, coupled with Pineda still owing 39 games on his suspension, the Twins still need to find solutions to fill voids early in the season.
On a side note, Hill and his wife, Caitlin, were arrested last week for disorderly conduct while trying to enter Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts before a Patriots-Bills game. According to NBC Sports, Caitlin repeatedly tried to enter the stadium with an oversized bag and refused to leave. Rich then tried to stop police from putting Caitlin inot a police vehicle for booking.
Both Rich and Caitlin had their charges dropped to civil infractions.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.