Instant Grade: Yankees Bring Back Tim Hill on a One-Year Contract in Free Agency

Two things can be true about Tim Hill's time with the Yankees. He has been solid for most of his tenure in the Bronx and was rock-solid in their 2024 World Series run. You could even argue the World Series would have gone differently if manager Aaron Boone had used him over Nestor Cortes Jr. against Freddie Freeman.

That said, while some underlying metrics show a player who is still elite at generating ground balls, it was clear Hill wasn't the same crafty southpaw he had been since coming over.

The Yankees aren't going to go broke with a one-year $2.5 million deal, per MLB insider Jeff Passan, but it's less about the money and more about the fact that Hill didn't play well enough to come back. He could very well have a bounce-back year and tinker with a few things this winter, but coming off a year with a 4.60 ERA in 58.2 IP and a below-average 88.9% average exit velocity, this deal isn't getting a high mark.

Left-handed reliever Tim Hill and the New York Yankees are in agreement on a one-year, $2.25 million contract that includes a $2.5 million club option for 2028, sources tell ESPN. Hill returns for his fourth season with the Yankees, whose bullpen is a top priority this offseason.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 15, 2026

Grading Yankees' Tim Hill signing

Hill's bread and butter was soft contact. If he's going to be a crafty reliever who throws below 90 mph, mitigating hard contact is something that he needs to be elite at. It's what made him successful for the majority of his time with the Yankees, but he simply could not do it consistently enough in 2026.

The most jarring thing about Hill's game, which suggests he's due for a regression, is his propensity to give up the long ball. In 2026, Hill had a 30.8% home run-to-fly ball rate. It was 15.7% in 2025. Then, in 2024, Hill had a 5.4% HR/FB rate with both the Yankees and White Sox.

Juan Soto homers off Tim Hill pic.twitter.com/teXFncE7Q2
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) September 12, 2026

The 12 home runs he gave up were the most in his career. It was more than the combined home runs he gave up in 2024 and 2025. He allowed 10 in those two seasons alone.

The one positive about Hill is that he has been successful in New York before. The big hope is that a poor 2026 is the outlier. When Hill is on, he's been nails, and that World Series run was proof of that. Still, that version of Hill could be in the past now. The Yankees should have moved on and either found their next crafty southpaw or relied on a younger, lesser-known player on the farm to get the innings he ate up last year.

The Matt Blake era in New York has been about turning reclamation projects into elite arms. There really wasn't much of a reason to bring him back for that alone. The Yankees could have easily filled that void with someone else.

Get Yankees On SI straight to your inbox: sign up for our free newsletter here.

Add us as a preferred source on Google