The Ever Versatile Bill Hall has a new Home for 2011

It’s been quite a journey around the majors for Bill Hall the last couple of seasons and his latest stop has him slated to open the season as the Houston Astros’ everyday second baseman in 2011. It wasn’t all that long ago that Hall was one of the top shortstops in baseball, both in the field and at the bat. Hall was last seen playing all over the field for the Boston Red Sox in 2010 filling in at several positions, including pitcher. Hall was able to rebuild his value enough with the Sox, after three years of decreasing performance, to land a deal with the Astros this off-season.

Hall settled into the majors with the Milwaukee Brewers full-time in 2004 spending most of his time at second but also mixing in a decent amount of time at shortstop and spent some time over at third base, as well. He didn’t hit particularly well but despite spending time at three different positions, Hall managed a 2.3 UZR. In 2005, Hall bounced around again, this time splitting starts between short(58 games) and third(49 games) with twenty-one starts at second as well. His defense was more or less average with an overall UZR of .3. Hall’s work at the plate took off in 2005.

After a .281 wOBA in 2004, Hall hit .291 with a .204 isolated power, popped 17 homers, swiped 18 bases in 24 attempts, walked in 7.1 percent of his plate appearances and finished up with a .360 wOBA. The performance was worth 3.7 fWAR and Hall upped his game another level in 2006. His 5.0 fWAR performance in 2006 came thanks to both a 6.3 UZR and a .369 wOBA. Hall’s average dropped to .270, but it didn’t matter in the least because he had power galore with a 35 homer, 39 double performance leaving him with a .283 isolated power. He also walked in 10.4 percent of hit plate appearances allowing him to keep his on-base percentage relatively static from 2005 to 2006 despite a .021 drop in batting average.

Hall spent almost of all the 2006 season at shortstop, playing 126 there in light of J.J. Hardy, 2005’s primary shortstop, missing all but 35 games that season. At the end of the 2006 season Hall had spent more time at shortstop than either second or third and when his performance was compared to other shortstops at the time Hall stacked up impressively. Between 2005-2006 just two shortstops had a higher fWAR total than Hall’s 8.7 combined total. The two shortstops were Derek Jeter and Miguel Tejada and his fWAR output was even to that of Jimmy Rollins and just ahead of both Michael Young and Rafael Furcal.

With J.J. Hardy returning to health in 2007, Hall was shifted to center field despite his solid defense across the infield. But Hardy himself has had outstanding defensive numbers throughout his career at shortstop, making it hard to argue with shifting Hall to a new position. Although it was only one season, Hall’s defense wound up being a plus playing center everyday just as it had been in the infield with a 3.1 UZR. Hall then spent the bulk of his playing time at third base in 2008 and once again managed near average defense with a -.3 UZR.

The continued, apparent, defensive capabilities of Hall as he moved from one primary position to another was impressive. What wasn’t impressive was his sudden decline in hitting starting in 2007. After two seasons of .200+ isolated power figures, Hall continued to show above average, but diminished power in 2007 and 2008 with isolated powers of .170 and .171, respectively. He also wasn’t able to continue his double digit walk rate in 2006 in either year falling to 8.0 percent in 2007 and 8.3 percent in 2008.

What ultimately dragged his offensive production below average in both years was his poor batting averages. After hitting .291 and .270 in 2005 and 2006, Hall managed to hit just .254 and .225 in 2007 and 2008. Hall’s batting average in balls in play, at least in 2007, wasn’t the culprit in a drop in his batting average. In 2005, he hit .291 thanks to a .336 BABIP but he also stuckout in just 20.6 percent of his at-bats, in 2006 he hit .270 while striking out a whopping 30.2 percent of the time thanks partially to a .319 BABIP but also in large part to the 35 home runs he hit that season.

2007 saw Hall benefit from neither an average strikeout rate, he went down on strikes 28.3 percent of the time, or a plethora of home runs, he hit just 14 in 503 plate appearances. That led him to the .254 batting average despite a solid .319 BABIP. In 2008 he hit just .225 and that was due to an increase in strikeouts to 30.7 percent but could also be attributed to a .284 BABIP. Then the bottom fell out in 2009 for Hall as he hit .201 with a .138 isolated power, a .281 BABIP, a staggering 35.9 percent strikeout rate and his lowest walk rate, 7.4 percent, since 2005. The strikeout rate really makes it near impossible for Hall to hit for a high average.

The offensive fallout ultimately led to the Brewers designating Hall for assignment in August of 2009 and subsequently dealing him to the Mariners. At the time, Hall was in the third year of a four year extension he signed back in February of 2007 and the Brewers agreed to pay the rest of Hall’s contract in 2009 and sent the Mariners 7.15 million dollars to cover most of his 8.4 million dollar salary for 2010 and a half million dollar buyout on his 2011 option. The approximate 21.75 million dollar outlay from the Brewers netted a return of only 7.9 million dollars in value from Hall’s production.

In the off-season preceding the 2010 season the Mariners dealt Hall off to the Red Sox and sent along the 7.15 million dollars from Mariners too. What had been a disaster in terms of value for the Brewers turned Hall into a cheap 1.75 million dollar utility player for the Sox in 2010. He only totaled up one fWAR for the Sox in 2010 but even that made him a bargain as it gave him a value of about 3.8 million dollars. The dollar value understates Hall’s importance to the 2010 Red Sox, who suffered from a couple seasons worth of injuries all across the diamond.

Hall wound up with a -7.3 UZR, his worst cumulative defensive rating of his career, but it could hardly be held against him. He started 42 games in left field, 6 in center, 5 in right, 38 at second, 3 at shortstop, 2 at third, and even managed to pitch a scoreless 1-2-3 inning in a blowout.  Spreading across that many positions in one season probably contributed to his negative defensive rating, although Hall had split time across positions before, he had never done so to the extreme that he did in 2010.

Hall’s bat finally showed some semblance of his peak offensive performances early in his career. He cutback his strikeout rate to 30.2 percent, hit 18 homers in 382 plate appearances and had a BABIP of .300. It helped Hall hit .244 and with an 8.9 percent walk rate he was able to get his on-base percentage to .316, the first time it was over .300 since 2007. The walk rate was the second best of his career, as was his .209 isolated power and Hall had his first above average wOBA , .342, since 2006.

While Hall had somewhat of a comeback in 2010, he is now thirty-one years old and still has three depressing offensive seasons amongst the last four. It just so happens that his best of the four is also his most recent. Still, the rebound was good enough to land Hall a three million dollar contract for 2011 with a 2011 option for four million. Part of Hall’s offensive comeback probably came from playing in Fenway which, according to StatCorner, has a wOBA park factor for right handers of 106. His new home field has a wOBA park factor of 100(essentially a neutral/average environment) but has a 117 home run park factor for righties, compared to Fenway’s 95.

It’s a good fit for Hall and if can continue to hit like last season he should be able to hit over 20 home runs with a full season of playing time in Houston. His defense should be right around average at second given his defensive past. He does have a -3.5 UZR at second on his career but he’s spent less time there than either short or third, maybe he’ll adapt and be his usual defensive self. He’s certainly done so in the past.

The journey of Hall’s career took a sharp turn around last season and with a thin minor league system in Houston, Hall will be able to earn playing time there as long as he produces. His reborn bat and defensive versatility will also make him attractive to contending teams as the trade deadline approaches. Hall might not be a four or five fWAR a season player anymore, but he might yet be able to put together a three or four year run as a two to two and half fWAR regular on the backside of his career. It’s a far cry from 2005-2006 but it’s a much brighter outlook for Hall than the one he had last year at this time.