With Major League Baseball’s clock ticking towards a midnight lockout by owners and a resulting transaction freeze, the Red Sox continued to bolster their rotation. According to a major league source, the team reached agreement with lefthander Rich Hill on a one-year deal.
Hill, 41, made 31 starts and logged 158⅔ innings for the Rays and Mets last season, his largest workload since 2007. He went 7-8 with a 3.86 ERA, a 22.7 percent strikeout rate, and an 8.3 percent walk rate, continuing a mid-career rebirth as a starter that commenced shortly after the Red Sox signed Hill out of the independent Atlantic League in 2015.
This marks the seventh time that Hill has reached a free-agent agreement with the Red Sox. Last month, he made clear that as he prepared for an 18th big league season, the opportunity to return to the Sox (and continue his career while living at home in Milton) had considerable appeal.
“[The Red Sox] do things right. I’ve been around 14 organizations. … If I tell you that they’re in the upper echelon [of franchises], they’re doing pretty good,” said Hill. “There is an interest [in the Red Sox], without a doubt. … There’s a need on the other end. [But] the need for starting pitching is very apparent throughout the league — not just in Boston. It’s also many other clubs that that need it.”
In the end, however, it was the Sox who offered the right fit for Hill, who joins Michael Wacha and James Paxton — recovering from Tommy John surgery and likely out until after the All-Star break — as rotation reinforcements signed to one-year deals for 2022.
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier.
