In 2009, Aaron Hill had a season of a lifetime. He batted .286 with 36 homeruns, 103 runs and 108 RBI's. Absolutely rediculous numbers for a second baseman that wasn't highly drafted. Any person with a decent knowlede of baseball would have expected a slight regression...but this?As of this post, Aaron Hill is hitting .192 through 65 games, falling short of the "Mendoza line" for the first 50+ game stretch in his professional career (at any level). Hill's only saving grace (and the reason he remains owned in nearly 90% of ESPN Standard Leagues) is that his power is still legit. I'm not entirely sure if he is injured and the public just doesn't know about it, or maybe he's got his sights set on swinging for the fences every time he steps up to the plate, whatever it is it has his fantasy owners frustrated.
Being that the season is nearly half over, at what point do you dump Hill? If he bats below .200 all year, even if he hits 15 more homeruns, he's going to get dropped in a lot of leagues (and might already have been in yours). I'll give a couple arguements for both sides and let you decide what to do with him.
"Dump him I say! Another 15 homeruns isn't worth how much he's killing my batting average!" A valid arguement good sir. Here is something to think about: All else equal and constant, if Hill were to bat his career average from here on out the rest of the season (.276), he would still end up batting .239 in 581 at bats. While it's not god-awful, it presents the same problem Carlos Pena owners have all year long. Is the power really worth the batting average? Thats assuming he will improve his batting average, what if he doesnt? If he bats .250 the rest of the way, he'll end the year at .223. Lets not even think about him batting below .200 the rest of the season, because if he does he likely won't make it to 500 at bats, let alone the 15 extra homeruns your expecting from him.
"Whoa, steady now! He's gotten really unlucky so far, he's bound to turn it around." Another good point, and the most commonly used defence against his poor performance thus far. His BABIP is an unworldly .185 compared to his career average of .296. Consider he posted a previous career low BABIP of .288 in 2009 and the picture becomes more clear. This must be bad luck, it's statistically improbable (but not impossible) that his performance should actually be this bad. However, a look at other periferals makes things a little clearer. Hill's LD% (Line-Drive Percent) is nearly half of what it was last year, as well as his career average, sitting at 8.3%. It's possible he's just not seeing the ball well this year, or pitchers have found a glaring hole in his swing. At any rate, I would expect both of those numbers to increase, which will cause his batting average to go up as well. He might even get more runs and RBI's out of this as well.
So really, it depends on how optimistic you are. Do you wait it out or bail now? My advice would be that if you've ridden this ride this long, you better be in it for the long haul. I would also consider him a strong buy low candidate, and if he's on the waiver wire in your league, grab him and stash him on the bench.
