In what was a bit serendipitous, Ole Miss landed one of the top transfer portal shortstops in Arizona State freshman Luke Hill. The Rebels thought they were set at short with JD Urso from Tampa, outside of potentially picking up a glove-first backup. Cooper Pratt was a lottery ticket who signed with the Brewers. Once Urso left Oxford to return to Tampa, Ole Miss went shopping and ultimately landed Hill, who entered the portal on the final day that was possible -- much to the frustration of ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist.
Hill hit .314 with an .845 OPS in 54 games, 54 starts. He hit 11 doubles, six home runs and had 93 total bases. He struck out 42 times and had 27 free passes -- a decent ratio but you'd like the K number to come down some if there's not an increase in power. He slugged .456 with a .389 OBP. His 17.9 percent K rate is similar to Kemp Alderman and Calvin Harris and a good bit higher than Jacob Gonzalez. It's also worth giving him the benefit of being a freshman. TJ McCants' freshman K rate was over 27 and Alderman's was 68. Calvin Harris' was 23. That's a stat that traditionally improves for talented players. Hill's walk percentage is almost identical to Alderman and Peyton Chatagnier.
Hill had a .365 BABIP which in college says he was minimally lucky with batted balls in play. Some of that is his own making though because his pop-up percentage is only 5.5 percent. He hit a lot of balls hard. You'd like the 47 percent ground ball rate to come down a touch. I do wonder if Ole Miss will focus on some lift with him. You'd be ok if he hit a couple pop ups in exchange for some increased power. His advanced analytics are eerily similar to Harris. The production wasn't the same, but the profile really looks the same in almost every facet. I hesitate to say this, but that looks like the upside projection I would go with as a comp. Harris hit home runs on 18 percent of his fly balls. Hill was at 10 percent, so is that the area that evens the numbers? We'll see. He hit .250 in league games, but it looks like freshman adjustment stuff. He played well against good teams. He had 10 hits in six combined games against Mississippi State and Oregon State and a hit in every game against Stanford.
His weighted runs created numbers would have been fourth on Ole Miss' roster behind the obvious three. The eye-opening thing is only those three Ole Miss players had a positive runs created stat - meaning they were better than an average player. Now they were way better, but Ole Miss had five players below the D1 average (not SEC) and another seven at zero.
Hill hit .314 with an .845 OPS in 54 games, 54 starts. He hit 11 doubles, six home runs and had 93 total bases. He struck out 42 times and had 27 free passes -- a decent ratio but you'd like the K number to come down some if there's not an increase in power. He slugged .456 with a .389 OBP. His 17.9 percent K rate is similar to Kemp Alderman and Calvin Harris and a good bit higher than Jacob Gonzalez. It's also worth giving him the benefit of being a freshman. TJ McCants' freshman K rate was over 27 and Alderman's was 68. Calvin Harris' was 23. That's a stat that traditionally improves for talented players. Hill's walk percentage is almost identical to Alderman and Peyton Chatagnier.
Hill had a .365 BABIP which in college says he was minimally lucky with batted balls in play. Some of that is his own making though because his pop-up percentage is only 5.5 percent. He hit a lot of balls hard. You'd like the 47 percent ground ball rate to come down a touch. I do wonder if Ole Miss will focus on some lift with him. You'd be ok if he hit a couple pop ups in exchange for some increased power. His advanced analytics are eerily similar to Harris. The production wasn't the same, but the profile really looks the same in almost every facet. I hesitate to say this, but that looks like the upside projection I would go with as a comp. Harris hit home runs on 18 percent of his fly balls. Hill was at 10 percent, so is that the area that evens the numbers? We'll see. He hit .250 in league games, but it looks like freshman adjustment stuff. He played well against good teams. He had 10 hits in six combined games against Mississippi State and Oregon State and a hit in every game against Stanford.
His weighted runs created numbers would have been fourth on Ole Miss' roster behind the obvious three. The eye-opening thing is only those three Ole Miss players had a positive runs created stat - meaning they were better than an average player. Now they were way better, but Ole Miss had five players below the D1 average (not SEC) and another seven at zero.
