Rich Hill was acquired by the Los Angeles Dodgers at the 2016 trade deadline and spent three more seasons with the team until he signed with the Minnesota Twins ahead of the 2020 campaign.
The 41-year-old left-hander has been playing professional baseball since 2002 and pitched for an MLB club every season since 2005. With 17 seasons at the Major League level, there is one year that stands out to Hill — his 2017 season with the Dodgers.
Of course, that year didn’t end the way he and the team wanted, thanks in large part to the Houston Astros orchestrating a cheating scandal en route to winning the World Series.
However, that doesn’t mean the season was one to forget, as Hill pointed out during a recent appearance on the “The Rose Rotation”:
“I think that team in 2017 that we had was a tremendous team. I feel we were the best team in baseball. We had an unbelievable bullpen, starting rotation was great and obviously, our lineup was great too. The way the guys came together that year, it was something that … I’ll never forget that team.”
The 2017 Dodgers finished the season with 104 wins, which gave them the best record in baseball. During the season they went on an 81-24 span, which was the best record over a 105-game stretch in MLB history.
The question of whether the 2017 Dodgers were the best team ever was first posed by Sports Illustrated with one of their magazines featuring a cover with Justin Turner and Yasiel Puig titled, “Best. Team. Ever?”
While L.A. finished 12 wins short of tying the 2001 Seattle Mariners’ MLB record of 116 wins in a season because of a slow start and a streak in late August and early September that saw them lose 16 out of 17 games, it was a fair question to ask.
Hill has previously referred to the 2017 Dodgers as the best team from that year and even with the group technically falling short, it’s a difficult sentiment to argue against.
Dodgers celebrated Hill
This past season marked Hill’s first return to Dodger Stadium since leaving the Dodgers in free agency, and the team used the opportunity to celebrate him with a tribute video. Fans gave Hill a standing ovation, and he was appreciative of the entire moment.
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