Aaron Hicks May

[greengoblinrulz]

Now slugging .477 thru Wed's game....tied for 2nd on team w/ Plouffe behind Mauer's .568.

Are you more intersted in his BAve (.205) or his power (4doubles triples, 6HR)

[stringer bell]

Batting average doesn't mean much but Aaron needs to get on more than 25%. Nice power spike and he's made some fine catches in the outfield.

[greengoblinrulz]

Revere .302OBP w/.294slgg

Hicks .240 OBP w/ .323slgg

Shows how bad Ben has been

[ashbury]

Now slugging .477 thru Wed's game....tied for 2nd on team w/ Plouffe behind Mauer's .568.

Are you more intersted in his BAve (.205) or his power (4doubles triples, 6HR)

 

Hicks's season has been as extreme a case of repeated adjustments between batter and (collective) opposing pitcher as you could dream up. The individual pieces of his season are interesting to look at, but I'm waiting for some kind of consistent pattern to emerge before using any numbers to think seriously about him. He hasn't had a walk in 11 games, right? That's no more sustainable for a batter than his week in April when his nearly .500 OBP was almost entirely from walks. Batter and pitchers, still feeling each other out, at this point, and no equilibrium is apparent yet. The current power surge will subside, not solely due to SSS (though that is always a factor) but because pitchers will stop giving him pitches to hit, and the walks will go back up.

[TheLeviathan]

I think his defensive play indicates a lot about where he is mentally. He has ranged from downright brilliant to comical. (As in the Delmon-esque twirls on that double tonight)

 

He's very feast or famine, but when you see him feast....damn is it exciting and promising.

[Oxtung]

Revere .302OBP w/.294slgg

Hicks .240 OBP w/ .323slgg

Shows how bad Ben has been

 

Not to turn this into a Hicks vs. Revere argument but I think it's fair to include Revere's May stats since we have Hicks.

 

Revere's May: .348/.394/.394 for an OPS of .788. So he had a god awful beginning to the year but that is a very respectable May.

[PseudoSABR]

It is interesting how little he has walked and how his power has emerged simultaneously. I wonder if this is part of a tiered adjustment getting Hicks to be more aggressive as to gain confidence in his swing; maybe we'll see his walks start to emerge with the limited success he's started have when does put wood on bat...

[Shane Wahl]

It is interesting how little he has walked and how his power has emerged simultaneously. I wonder if this is part of a tiered adjustment getting Hicks to be more aggressive as to gain confidence in his swing; maybe we'll see his walks start to emerge with the limited success he's started have when does put wood on bat...

 

This is spot on. He is swinging at first pitches often now. It's not a good idea to have someone jump a level and then be a leadoff man. That is a lesson learned. He has been able to relax and swing more freely. As a leadoff man he would get behind in the count and panic some. Or panic a lot.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I like walks, but a single is usually better than a walk as it can move runners more... That said, you have to have runners on for that to even come into play. More than anything else, Hicks needs to get the average up. His OPS looks decent, but a .200 BA isn't going to cut it. The fact that he's improved (coupled with the fact that there are no other options) is as good enough of reason as any to keep the experiment going. If he can show improvement in the contact area for the month of June, I think there's going to be a lot more excitement about this kid.

[Mike Sixel]

I'm more interested in the power, but you can't just ignore his BA/OBP. But, the power surge is great to see.

[gunnarthor]

It is interesting how little he has walked and how his power has emerged simultaneously. I wonder if this is part of a tiered adjustment getting Hicks to be more aggressive as to gain confidence in his swing; maybe we'll see his walks start to emerge with the limited success he's started have when does put wood on bat...

 

I'm curious about that, too. He's hitting .353/.353/.824 with 2 HR when he puts the first pitch into play. So I think he has made some adjustments and started to get a little more aggressive in early counts. But it's way too early to conclude that. Still, he's a fun to watch and his power looks legit.

[DaveW]

I have said it before and will say it again, Hicks reminds me exactly of Hunters rookie year where he struggled quite a bit as well, I think its get that he is taking his lumps at the major league level and has been showing improvement in all aspects of his game. Hicks is going to be a real nice player for us (I still think basically Hunter 2.0 with a better eye at the plate and more speed on the basepaths) most likely won't be a perennial all-star but should be a nice player.

[Oxtung]

I have said it before and will say it again, Hicks reminds me exactly of Hunters rookie year where he struggled quite a bit as well, I think its get that he is taking his lumps at the major league level and has been showing improvement in all aspects of his game. Hicks is going to be a real nice player for us (I still think basically Hunter 2.0 with a better eye at the plate and more speed on the basepaths) most likely won't be a perennial all-star but should be a nice player.

 

Hunter carried a .224 BA through his first 46 games and it was as high as .252 midway through May. He was striking out at an 18% clip. Hicks has topped out at a paltry .165 and is striking out at a 28% rate.

 

There is a difference between struggling but hanging in there and just flat out getting dominated. Through the same points in their career Hunter was the former while Hicks is the latter.

[beckmt]

Nice to see Hicks starting to progress. Give him time, his April's have tended to be bad.

[ashbury]

I like walks, but a single is usually better than a walk

 

Walks have some value to an offense, but often they are more an indicator that other parts of the player's offense are clicking. Barry Bonds is the poster child for that. However, it can indicate that pitchers think a player is a chump and stop giving him anything to hit with two strikes, but he has stopped being a chump. Aaron Hicks of April 15-23 was the poster child for that.

 

I normally am wary of SSS, but not for a young guy skipping a level if you can construct a reasonable case.

[Shane Wahl]

Hicks always starts slowly. I predict his June is going to be ridiculously good.

[JB_Iowa]

I don't have any predictions on what will happen but I have a lot more patience for 23-year-old Aaron Hicks than I do for players who are 3, 4 or more years older than him. The key thing for me is whether we can see progress. Not necessarily day-to-day but overall progress from month-to-month. So far, he is doing that. I'm just hoping we don't see any big regressions.

[Riverbrian]

I was fully prepared for struggles and ready to exhibit patience.

 

However... The first three weeks were off the charts and I felt that he was over matched and needed to be sent down for his own sanity.

 

I no longer feel that way and am back to... "Prepared for struggles and ready to exhibit patience".

[mcrow]

I'm more interested with an OPS .733 in may than the .205 BA, but Hicks needs to have a OBP better than .250 to be usefull in the majors. The SLG and OPS look nice but noboday is worthy of roster spot with an OBP of .250.

 

The most encouraging thing is that the K rate has gone down and the power went up. May indicate that he is seeing some pitches better and being more agressive.

 

So, there are some positive spots but still unacceptable OBP.

[ericchri]

The time to send him back to AAA was a month ago. He appears to be figuring things out now, and while he's got a long ways to go yet, I'm no longer certain going back helps him develop as a player. It might help the team some if he could be replaced by someone who would produce better stats, but I find myself doubting he personally learns/grows more at AAA than staying up at this point.

 

He would be moving from "improving slowly against the best there is" to "hitting against inferior talent to what he was facing" and then has to come back up again at some point and readjust to superior talent to what he had just been learning against. How much confidence does he gain if he goes back down and crushes AAA compared to how much confidence he gains by gradually succeeding at MLB? Does a demotion demoralize him enough that he takes the entire season to get it together again? (Those were both rhetorical, as they can't be answered without access to Hicks's brain)

 

If they were in serious contention for the playoffs or had a legitimate candidate to replace him you would feel confident could outperform him it might be more adviseable, but I can't really see that at this point.

[StormJH1]

This team is going to lose 90 games, primarily because of the rotation. So long as Hicks can get consistent playing time as an MLB center fielder (which he will, since we basically don't have any other ones on the 40-man), then I'm not overly concerned if he finishes the year hitting .150, .170, or whatever. It's not GOOD that he does that, but we're starting to see hints of his ability to turn on a ball, and it's starting to happen from the left side now as well (his earlier power was RH'ed).

 

It's funny that people make the Hunter comparison, but I don't see too much comparison to Carlos Gomez. They were similar ages when Gomez was rushed into action in 2008. The funny thing is that even though their approaches are completely different (Gomez WAY overaggressive, Hicks too selective), the end results are almost the same. Or at least they might be, except that Hicks' BABIP is .192 (how is that even possible?!?), while Go-Gomez had a .330 BABIP that year.

 

Much like in 2008, it was assumed entering the year that we had a bad team, and we were filling a void left in CF by departing players (Hunter then, Revere/Span now). People lamented that Gomez wasn't sent back down to the minors, yet despite striking out 142 times that year, Gomez's OBP of .296 would destroy Hicks' .246 OBP unless the latter continues to improve.

 

Goes to show how much context matters. People had a very short leash with Carlos Gomez because he wasn't as good as Johan Santana, yet despite Gomez's "careless" approach, he was getting on base far more often than Hicks has, was easily a better defensive center fielder, and probably was a bigger SB threat as well when he did get on.

[StormJH1]

The time to send him back to AAA was a month ago. He appears to be figuring things out now, and while he's got a long ways to go yet, I'm no longer certain going back helps him develop as a player. It might help the team some if he could be replaced by someone who would produce better stats, but I find myself doubting he personally learns/grows more at AAA than staying up at this point.

Totally agree. However, while he basically has the job out of sheer necessity right now, he should take note of what happened to Chris Parmelee, who is still relatively young, but never started hitting in the majors before he started to get steamrolled by other young players.

 

Buxton is coming. Not this year, maybe not for most or all of next year, but Hicks can't wait until he's 27 to figure things out if he wants a job on this team.

[LaBombo]

This team is going to lose 90 games, primarily because of the rotation. So long as Hicks can get consistent playing time as an MLB center fielder (which he will, since we basically don't have any other ones on the 40-man), then I'm not overly concerned if he finishes the year hitting .150, .170, or whatever. It's not GOOD that he does that, but we're starting to see hints of his ability to turn on a ball, and it's starting to happen from the left side now as well (his earlier power was RH'ed).

My guess is that there's a pretty good reason why no team in major league baseball ever gives 500 plate appearances to ANY player who bats .170, let alone a 23 year old prospect who skipped a level and could work on his game in the minors.

 

It's not going to happen. He'll either improve substantially, or be demoted regardless of the Twins' self-inflicted 'necessity'.

[The Greatest Poster Alive]

Hicks looks like a kid who made a big jump and is struggling to adjust. I think he's finally starting to come around. I really don't care what his end of the year stats look like as long as he continues to make incremental improvements.

 

Anybody who thinks there's any reasonable scenario where the Twins could be contenders and Hicks getting AB's and learning what MLB games are all about is the best use of the center field position.

[jokin]

Portrait of intersecting careers headed in the exact opposite directions:

 

Batting numbers for May:

 

Hicks: OBP .250 ISO .276 K% 25

Dunn: OBP .247 ISO .244 K% 40

[cmb0252]

Hicks was not only rushed to the bigs but was a notorious slow starter. I'm not sure what people were expecting from the kid. For every Trout/Harper there are 100 talent prospects that come up to the bigs and struggle their first year or two. He is going to be fine. Talk about people freaking out about small sample size.

[Mr. Brooks]

Hicks was not only rushed to the bigs but was a notorious slow starter. I'm not sure what people were expecting from the kid. For every Trout/Harper there are 100 talent prospects that come up to the bigs and struggle their first year or two. He is going to be fine. Talk about people freaking out about small sample size.

 

And even Trout struggled his first (partial) year up.

[jokin]

Hicks was not only rushed to the bigs but was a notorious slow starter. I'm not sure what people were expecting from the kid. For every Trout/Harper there are 100 talent prospects that come up to the bigs and struggle their first year or two. He is going to be fine. Talk about people freaking out about small sample size.

 

Example please of who put their freak on? He's been below the low expectations based on his career example, he's clearly catching up to his potential, slowly but surely, not sure who's disputing that set of facts.

[Thrylos]

For a second I read the title as "Aaron, Hicks, Mays" and was wondering how much of hyperbole it will include

[diehardtwinsfan]

Hicks looks like a kid who made a big jump and is struggling to adjust. I think he's finally starting to come around. I really don't care what his end of the year stats look like as long as he continues to make incremental improvements.

 

Anybody who thinks there's any reasonable scenario where the Twins could be contenders and Hicks getting AB's and learning what MLB games are all about is the best use of the center field position.

 

 

I'd say pretty much the same thing about your avatar.