No. 1 pick Derek Hill learning how to be a hitter
Will he hit?
A year ago, before the Tigers made Derek Hill their first-round draft pick, scouts loved everything about a California prep star's center-field skills, except, perhaps, for his potential as a big-league hitter.
The Tigers said, firmly, that Hill's talent extended to his bat, which is why they paid $2 million to sign a 6-foot, 185-pound, right-handed batter from Elk Grove High.
Now he works at Single A West Michigan, a 19-year-old bolting together his first full season of professional baseball. And still it is fair to ask:
Will he hit?
"I can say this," Bruce Fields, the Tigers minor-league roving hitting instructor said Sunday as he got ready to watch the Whitecaps meet Cedar Rapids at Fifth Third Field. "He's definitely improved over the last month.
"Three weeks ago he was hitting .190. Now his batting average is up to (.232 after going 2-for-5 with a triple Sunday). And one thing I've noticed is that the ball is coming off his bat a lot better than it did earlier.
"He's starting to get a feel for his swing, hitting the ball to right-center and center, with crisp line drives. His strike-zone discipline has been better, especially with two strikes, and so that's not as glaring now as it was early.
"Obviously, there are still some areas he needs to work on. But I'm definitely seeing improvement, some big improvement, with his swing."
You can view it in Hill's numbers, unremarkable as they are: Although he was on a 1-for-12 skid in three games leading into Sunday, he is batting .300 in his last 10 games and, during one five-game stretch from May 29-June 3, Hill was 8-for-19 (.421).
But the stats through 43 games are not quite what teams would prefer from a top pick: .232 batting average, .301 on-base percentage, .299 slugging percentage, for a less-than-sparkling OPS of .600.
Again, is this a man who someday will hit enough to become an everyday center fielder, which his tools otherwise validate?
"I'll put it like this," Fields said. "His batting average is, what, (.232)? But he's scoring runs (29), he's up there in the league lead for stolen bases (22), and he's playing exceptional defense, which is what we want.
"The offense isn't what you would say is consistent with an upper-echelon hitter, not just yet, but he's walking (18), and his pitch-recognition is improving. This guy has a chance moving forward to be a quality leadoff-type of player, possibly at the major-league level.
"You have to remember, he should be a freshman in college, so to have him at Low A at 19 years old — and he's holding on — that's what you want to see.
"He hit a rope last night (against Cedar Rapids) that Nick Gordon (Twins first-round pick in 2014) short-hops to the side and throws out Derek. That's the thing he and I had talked about — that when you hit the ball hard, that's all you can do.
"You can't direct it, you can't manipulate the bat or the ball, you hit the ball hard and you win the battle. And that's what he's starting to do more consistently now: square up pitches and have more consistent approaches at the plate."
Hill's profile otherwise states that the Tigers got it right. Center fielders who run 6.3 in the 60-yard dash (as Hill did a year ago), who have a gift for defense, and who potentially can make it as that all-around, up-the-middle player every club wants in center field, tend to go early in a draft – as long as the bat projects.
"He's plus defensively, with an average to slightly above average arm and, obviously, he's a plus runner," Fields said. "So, he's got a skill set that will play.
"It's just a matter of really getting into tune with his swing and having consistent success. Which, I think, is going to happen for him, offensively. He has all the other tools."
Now, for the bat. Hill has work to do. The Tigers say they're prepared to wait and to groom a teenage position player's most critical gift — his bat.
lynn.henning@detroitnews.com
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