Why Rich Hill's New Cutter Could Be a Game-Changer

Famously, Hill primarily throws a high-spin four-seam fastball, often aimed at the top of the strike zone, and a high-spin, 11-to-5 curveball. He reinvented himself as a reliever almost a decade ago, and even as he transitioned back to the starting rotation several seasons ago, he kept mostly to that two-pitch mix.

He will occasionally drop down to a sidearm delivery and throw a sinker, and he has thrown very rare sliders and changeups over the course of his second act, but all of those pitches have tended to be mere showpieces. Until last Tuesday, Hill hadn’t thrown any pitch other than the fastball and curve seven times in a single outing since April 2018.

Hill only threw 78 pitches in that game, though, and seven of them were cutters. It’s an offering he’s attempting to turn into a more reliable weapon than any other third pitch he’s tried in years. Speaking to the media after the game, Hill sounded enthusiastic about the endeavor, and credited both former teammate Clayton Kershaw and Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson with helping him develop the cutter.

Even before I heard those remarks, though, Kershaw and Johnson were the two people I thought of, as Hill made use of the cutter to get through five solid innings on a night when his command of the fastball and curve were spotty. Though they’ve never been identical pitchers, either mechanically or in terms of skill set, Kershaw and Hill have always shared some important characteristics, and the thing that separates them has always been Kershaw’s slider.

Here’s Kershaw’s pitch arsenal breakdown, from Baseball Savant.

With his uniquely over-the-top delivery, Kershaw keeps the ball in a tight vertical lane, mostly boring in on right-handers and moving away from lefties. Notice, though, that the slider keeps batters from being able to lock into one vertical path, while also creating an intermediate velocity band for which they have to account.

This is what Ted Williams used to say about the changes to pitching over the course of his career: once the slider entered wide use after World War II, it made the job of hitting 50 percent harder, because hitters had to guess among three viable options, instead of just sitting on either a fastball or a curve. Williams was oversimplifying, of course; many pitchers had had three pitches (most especially the changeup) for years before that. Still, there was some truth in what he said, because so many pitchers were able to add the slider, whereas many lacked something fundamental to throwing either the curve or the change. Pitchers were also more willing to use the slider, especially in its short, cutterish form, against opposite-handed batters, pushing the ball in on the hands for weak contact.

Hill has, for much of this latest act of his career, been the kind of hurler Williams so loved to face. Add the cutter to the mix, though, and everything looks just a bit different.

Now, Hill isn’t quite as over-the-top as Kershaw, and his curve has always had a bit more sweep. Still, to really force hitters to see and react to him in a different dimension, he’s always needed another pitch. The cutter fills that need. He’s unlikely to miss bats with the pitch the way Kershaw did with his slider, at his peak, but lately, Kershaw’s slider has become more like a cutter, getting weak contact and setting up whiffs on the fastball and curveball. That’s the role the cutter could fill for Hill.

If this story sounds familiar, it should. This is the same type of adjustment Jake Odorizzi made when he came to the Twins, and honed especially well in 2019. He was, for most of his career, a high-fastball guy, with a splitter and 12-to-6 curve that all stayed in the same vertical lane. Once he mastered the cutter, he was able to work both sides of home plate, and (in conjunction with his mechanical overhaul) that made him more effective against both right- and left-handed batters.

The Twins have become extremely adept at helping pitchers create the “wiggle” necessary to force hitters to cover the whole plate against them, inviting more weak contact. This adjustment could help Hill do the same thing. Even 40-year-olds who have pitched in two World Series and have a recent track record of dominance can learn new tricks, and in Minnesota, Hill has found the perfect learning environment.

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