Since joining the Philadelphia Phillies on June 13, Derek Hill has an OPS of 1.042 across 11 games. Neither Adolis García in 2026 nor Nick Castellanos in 2025 hit for an OPS that high during any 11-game sample.
Acquired from the Chicago White Sox for relative peanuts (no disrespect to Dylan Campbell or José Colmenares), Hill has been a short-term revelation for a Phillies offense that has lacked right-handed thump.
On days he has appeared in the lineup, the Phillies have averaged 6.2 runs per game. That, of course, cannot all be attributed to the man who has played on seven teams in seven years since making his big league debut in 2020. But he has nevertheless been a spark for a Phillies team that has lacked offensive dynamism from the right side thus far in 2026.
Evaluators expected gap power out of Hill when he was drafted 23rd overall by the Detroit Tigers in 2014. There was a time, albeit brief, when he was a top-100 prospect. But the Iowa-native never stayed hot—or healthy—for long in the minors.
When he was promoted to the Major League roster in 2020 out of necessity following a season-ending injury to JaCoby Jones, Hill batted .091 in 15 games. Despite six years in the farm system, he was unprepared for MLB pitching.
Defense, though, kept Hill on 40-man rosters throughout the first half of the ‘20s. He found playing time off the bench for the Tigers in 2021 and 2022 before he was claimed off waivers by the Seattle Mariners. Then the Washington Nationals gave Hill a brief look as a free agent signee in 2023. The Texas Rangers repeated that process in 2024, before he was selected off waivers by the San Francisco Giants, then claimed off waivers again that year by the Miami Marlins, who left him unprotected on waivers for the White Sox in 2025.
When the Phillies traded for Hill earlier in June, it was the first time in his life that a team actually appreciated Hill enough to send assets the other way for him. Few journeymen across the league have journeyed more than the now 30-year-old Hill since making their debut.
Perhaps the toothpick-chewing sparkplug has found a more permanent home in Philadelphia. Hill is under team control through the 2028 season, and though his offense certainly won’t remain at the dizzying post-1.000 OPS it has climbed to, he provides the right-handed center field value the Phillies have lacked the past several years.
Where Edmundo Sosa has provided right-handed pop off the bench on the infield, Philadelphia has been so desperate for a similar player in the outfield that their solution to the problem has also been Edmundo Sosa.
Hill is currently tied for the Major League lead in pinch-hit home runs with three and sports a .353 batting average as a PH. He hit home runs in the ninth inning on back-to-back nights on June 24 (a go-ahead two-run game-winning fence scraper) and June 25 (a 441-foot bomb to pad the lead).
“I went through a lot of trials and tribulations over the last some-odd years,” Hill told Lochlann March of the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday. “Just kind of failing, succeeding here and there, and just being able to take little pieces out of the successes, and hopefully continue doing that.”
However brief his successes have been in Philadelphia so far, Hill is aware that opportunities like these don’t come around often for players like him. More often than not, journeymen of his caliber are relegated to MLB’s second division, playing out their career in small markets for non-contenders.
And though Hill’s advanced stats don’t back up the meteoric start to his Phillies career, his teammates are glad to have his presence around.
“He fits right in with our group,” said slugger Kyle Schwarber.
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