Out of the Ballpark?

The criticism didn’t really sting Ken Hill--nine years in the big leagues tends to thicken your skin--but the Angel right-hander certainly felt it.

Though baseball churns out marginal millionaires by the truckloads, giving seven-figure contracts to players with six-figure talent, some front-office executives were shocked by the four-year, $22-million contract the Angels gave Hill this winter, ranking it up there on the lunacy scale with Arizona shortstop Jay Bell’s four-year, $34-million deal.

Hill’s reaction: You’ve got to be kidding me.

“These general managers are giving kids who have never stepped onto a big-league field $10 million, and they’re crying about what I got?” Hill said. “C’mon.”

Hill has well-above-average major league credentials, with a 99-83 record and 3.76 earned-run average, but the right-hander slipped to 9-12 with a 4.55 ERA during an injury-marred 1997 season with the Texas Rangers and Angels.

No baseball officials were quoted publicly about Hill’s signing last Nov. 16, but privately some worried the contract would raise the financial bar for pitchers with losing records even beyond its already astronomical heights.

Hill simply felt he deserved the deal.

“I had a bad year, don’t get me wrong,” Hill, 32, said. “But look around the league. Darryl Kile got big money [$24 million for three years from the Colorado Rockies] and he only had one really good year. Andy Benes [104-94 record] got a huge contract [$23.5 million, three years from the Arizona Diamondbacks].

“Pedro Astacio [53-48] doesn’t have half the stats I do and he made big money [$23 million, four years from the Rockies]. If I had a good year and won 15 games, I would have made even more.”

The Angels won’t apologize, because the deal wasn’t based so much on all of 1997 as it was on the final six weeks, when Hill gave up only 10 earned runs in 52 innings over his last seven starts.

They saw Hill at his best, when he was locating his fastball on both sides of the plate, keeping his split-finger pitch down in the strike zone or out of batters’ reach, changing speeds with his slider and keeping hitters off balance.

And their vision when they secured Hill to the deal was that he and Chuck Finley could combine to give the Angels as formidable a one-two pitching punch as anyone in their division and, perhaps, the American League.

“If Finley and Hill pitch the way they’re capable of, I think we’re going to match up well,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “You run those two guys out there with Allen Watson and Jason Dickson, and those are four guys who pitched pretty well for us last year.”

A puzzling question has emerged in recent years regarding Hill, though: Is he an ace or a wild card?

Hill, who reached the big leagues with St. Louis in 1988, had two outstanding seasons and one decent year in Montreal, going 16-9 with a 2.68 ERA in 1992, 9-7 with a 3.32 ERA in ’93 and 16-5 with a 3.32 ERA in ’94.

But a pattern of inconsistency began in 1995. After being traded back to St. Louis as part of the Expos’ salary purge, Hill went 6-7 with a 5.06 ERA in 18 Cardinal starts, walking almost as many (45) as he struck out (50).

A rent-a-pitcher trade to Cleveland that July sparked a resurgence. Hill went 4-1 in 11 regular-season starts and was superb in the postseason, throwing a seven-inning shutout to beat Seattle in Game 4 of the league championship series and giving up three runs in 6 1/3 innings of his only World Series start against the Atlanta Braves.

Hill helped Texas win its first AL West title in 1996, going 16-10 with a 3.63 ERA and recording 170 strikeouts and 95 walks, but a shoulder strain early in 1997 and a badly bruised shin--courtesy of a Garret Anderson line drive--set him back. Through July, Hill was 5-8 with a 5.19 ERA, with 68 strikeouts and 56 walks.

The Angels, hoping to boost their pennant hopes, traded catcher Jim Leyritz to the Rangers for Hill on July 29, but Hill arrived in Anaheim like a car in need of a major front-end alignment--his pitches were swerving all over the road.

He walked seven in his first Angel start and gave up three homers in one inning of his next. Hill walked six in his next game and then gave up seven earned runs in consecutive starts against Baltimore and New York.

Part of Hill’s problems were mental. He admitted putting too much pressure on himself to keep the Angels in the pennant race. And part was physical. Hill spent many hours in the video room with pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, searching for mechanical flaws in his delivery.

“Ken Hill, to me, is an outstanding major league pitcher, but I had never seen him have so many command problems,” Collins said. “He and Lach worked long and hard--I saw them in front of the TV set many a late night--but whatever they did worked.”

Hill discovered his motion was allowing hitters to identify his pitches sooner and caused the ball to come up in the strike zone. He made adjustments, and things began to click with a six-inning, three-run, one-walk performance in a 3-2 loss to Boston on Aug. 24.

Then came his breakthrough. Hill gave up one run and four hits in 8 1/3 innings of a 3-1 victory over San Diego on Aug. 29 and even chipped in with a two-run double. In his next five starts, he gave up only six earned runs, finishing the season as one of the league’s dominant pitchers.

“People didn’t realize that I got hurt early last season, and when I came back it was like starting spring training all over again,” Hill said. “Then Garret hit me with that liner, and that set me back. I was fighting to get my game back, but once I got in a groove I felt real comfortable.”

This spring, the challenge is to maintain that comfort zone. “If you get the right mind-set with what you’re doing, it’s easy to carry that over into another season,” Lachemann said. “But pitching is a very precise thing. It doesn’t take much to get you out of whack.”

Baseball’s salary structure isn’t nearly as precise, and some thought Hill’s deal was out of whack, but it’s not as if Hill will begin the season bent on proving those critics wrong.

“They can say what they want,” Hill said. “I’m not trying to show anybody anything. The Angels know what I can do.”