Article: The Mysterious Lost Season of Aaron Hicks

[Marta Shearing]

Where they screwed up was:

 

1. Batting him leadoff

2. Not having a backup plan

3. Not calling him up in Sept 2012 to get his feet wet.

4. Not learning their lesson and making the same mistake with Sano this year.

[orangevening]

Where they screwed up was:

 

1. Batting him leadoff

2. Not having a backup plan

3. Not calling him up in Sept 2012 to get his feet wet.

4. Not learning their lesson and making the same mistake with Sano this year.

 

Totally agree.

[Badsmerf]

Where they screwed up was:

 

1. Batting him leadoff

2. Not having a backup plan

3. Not calling him up in Sept 2012 to get his feet wet.

4. Not learning their lesson and making the same mistake with Sano this year.

 

Where they screwed up is starting him in the MLB. At this point, it is pretty clear he wasn't ready. I can't fathom how the excuse about batting lead-off is being agreed upon so readily. It is slightly more pressure, but the guy has been hitting leadoff his whole life, that is what is comfortable. His struggles were due to his poor contact rate (which the Twins already know about) and his terrible inability to switch hit.

 

I'm not ready to say he'll be a great player. I hope he will. If he was hitting RH every AB I might say that, but at this point I'm not convinced he can switch hit well enough to even be an MLB starter, nonetheless a great player. As shown by his .650 OPS in AAA (albeit in 72 AB's), he isn't killing it there either.

 

Patience is going to be a key with Hicks. He might take a few years of bouncing between Twins and AAA to finally get it. He should start learning LF or RF, as Buxton will start in AA next year and might push his way to the Twins by August.

[Marta Shearing]

Gotta put his cannon arm in RF.

[Badsmerf]

Gotta put his cannon arm in RF.

I agree with you, but Gardy has gone on record saying Acria is a better RF than LF.

[Mike Sixel]

I thought he'd be a mediocre hitter, and great fielder. He was worse at both than I had hoped, and been led to believe. I think he can be good, but I have my doubts. I really don't know what to expect now. I think it is bunk that hitting him leadoff was too much pressure, but I suppose it is possible.

[Shane Wahl]

Where they screwed up is starting him in the MLB. At this point, it is pretty clear he wasn't ready. I can't fathom how the excuse about batting lead-off is being agreed upon so readily. It is slightly more pressure, but the guy has been hitting leadoff his whole life, that is what is comfortable. His struggles were due to his poor contact rate (which the Twins already know about) and his terrible inability to switch hit.

 

I'm not ready to say he'll be a great player. I hope he will. If he was hitting RH every AB I might say that, but at this point I'm not convinced he can switch hit well enough to even be an MLB starter, nonetheless a great player. As shown by his .650 OPS in AAA (albeit in 72 AB's), he isn't killing it there either.

 

Patience is going to be a key with Hicks. He might take a few years of bouncing between Twins and AAA to finally get it. He should start learning LF or RF, as Buxton will start in AA next year and might push his way to the Twins by August.

 

He had not been "batting leadoff" his whole life. Hicks has spent a LOT of time at other spots in the order in the minors. He took off last year at AA when it was clear he was ready to move up from 3-4-5 to leadoff.

 

Do you disagree that batting elsewhere in the lineup would have afforded him the opportunity to be more aggressive? A lot of minor leaguers come up and are aggressive or get eaten up. It happened to Herrmann in 2012 at the end of the season when he was not aggressive.

[Alex]

I thought he'd be a mediocre hitter, and great fielder. He was worse at both than I had hoped, and been led to believe. I think he can be good, but I have my doubts. I really don't know what to expect now. I think it is bunk that hitting him leadoff was too much pressure, but I suppose it is possible.

 

While I could understand that it adds some pressure, I don't think it's the difference in his season. Some mentioned that he changed his approach because he was batting leadoff, but he always took a lot of pitches (his high OBP was indicative of that)

 

I read a scouting report on him (and I looked again and can't find it, maybe someone else knows the source) regarding his minor league time that a reason for his high strikeout rate was that he takes too many good pitches. He was getting himself into holes in the count and, at least there, iirc, the scout mentioned he was also taking a lot of borderline strikes and getting called out in an attempt to get the walk. So in the end, his greatest strength was also what was causing his K's. In the majors, that approach doesn't work as well because pitchers are more accurate and will throw you a strike until you can make them pay.

[Alex]

He had not been "batting leadoff" his whole life. Hicks has spent a LOT of time at other spots in the order in the minors. He took off last year at AA when it was clear he was ready to move up from 3-4-5 to leadoff.

 

Do you disagree that batting elsewhere in the lineup would have afforded him the opportunity to be more aggressive? A lot of minor leaguers come up and are aggressive or get eaten up. It happened to Herrmann in 2012 at the end of the season when he was not aggressive.

 

See my above post. You may be right that he could have been more aggressive at another spot, but that was never really his approach.

 

I'll agree, though, that -- regardless -- placing him in the leadoff spot was just one of many of the Twins blunders with him.

[Shane Wahl]

Yes, his track record is one of taking too many pitches. Well, doing that (and being forced to, as a leadoff hitter) and getting behind in counts when not nearly acclimated to major league pitching puts one at a disadvantage.

 

Without looking up the stats myself:

 

I wonder about Hicks' OPS on the first pitch.

I wonder about Arcia's OPS down 0-1.

I wonder about Pinto's OPS down 0-1 (even in limited PAs).

 

I wonder about them because it seems that Hicks was jumping on first pitches and doing things when he got "hot" (or whatever). I wonder what Arcia's numbers would be like if forced to take a strike once or twice per game, and I wonder if my suspicion about Pinto is right so far--that he is just smacking the ball around regardless.

 

Getting Hicks in 0-1 or 1-1 (if lucky) counts once or twice a game by design (as a leadoff hitter) when he has not had any chance to make adjustments (especially with those MLB off-speed out pitches) yet = much of the April debacle.

[howieramone1406390264]

See my above post. You may be right that he could have been more aggressive at another spot, but that was never really his approach.

 

I'll agree, though, that -- regardless -- placing him in the leadoff spot was just one of many of the Twins blunders with him.

But they were not blunders. Hunter, Morneau, and Cuddyer all had missteps when they first came to the bigs. I for one have no problem, when one of our top prospects has absolutely no one in front of them, and our FO takes a calculated risk. Hicks and for that matter Gibson and Arcia, are just that much more ready when their next shot comes.

[LaBombo]

Please find me anyone, ANYONE who was clamoring for Thomas, Richardson or Ramirez to start in CF over Hicks right after spring training. Yes, people were of the opinion that we shouldn't start Hicks arb time and yes they wanted him to win the job in spring training (and he did). My point is that their decision was easy from their (the FO) point of view. They weren't going to sign a free agent CF and the nobody considered the above players (was Richardson even with the organization then?) a option. Maybe they *should* have, but they were not.

 

Way before way before Hicks flopped or Mastro got hurt, the mistake of not having a realistic MLB-capable CF alternative in the organization was discussed in spring training threads. And it didn't have to do with service time for Hicks, it had to do with the fact that Hicks was likely to struggle and very possibly be overmatched.

 

The front office blew it, and it didn't take a crystal ball to see it coming.

[Alex]

But they were not blunders. Hunter, Morneau, and Cuddyer all had missteps when they first came to the bigs. I for one have no problem, when one of our top prospects has absolutely no one in front of them, and our FO takes a calculated risk. Hicks and for that matter Gibson and Arcia, are just that much more ready when their next shot comes.

 

We'll see, but let's see if those examples compare. Were any of those players called up mid-season and had as long a run of difficulty as Hicks before being sent down, not to mention skip a level of the minors?

 

Morneau was called up in June. Had a 115 PAs of .665 OPS before having success the following season.

 

Cuddyer was a Sept. callup and had just 20 PAs where he struggled. The following season .740 OPS in around 100 PAs and posted just under 100 OPS+ for the next few seasons in limited ABs before really coming into his own.

 

Hunter made it 20 PAs in April 1998 of OPS+ of 60. He struggled his first two seasons with OPS+ of 73 and 80 before taking off.

 

Sure all of them struggled in their first appearance and were even below average for a couple hundered at-bats, but none of them were as historically awful or as bad for as long as Hicks was. (OPS+ of 63 and a sub .600 OPS).

 

Gibson and Arcia weren't thrust into the starting lineup day and both spent time at AAA. Gibson's stint was incredibly short, 10 games. Arcia has actually been one of the better hitters on the team.

 

Honestly, there's no comparison between any of these players and what the front office expected from and thrust Hicks into. They are absolutely blunders both for the team and him: calling him up when he wasn't even close, leading him off, not getting a major league player who could handle the position, and keeping him up for so long.

 

If even these, so clearly mistakes by the FO (remember they said he was READY and put him in the leadoff spot), aren't recognized as such, I really don't see the point of continuing this discussion. I mean, I recognize that there might have been reason to support the FO to start -- that I think is a tenable position even if I disagree with it, but based on the results I don't understand how the move can be defended as the right one.

[LaBombo]

But they were not blunders. Hunter, Morneau, and Cuddyer all had missteps when they first came to the bigs. I for one have no problem, when one of our top prospects has absolutely no one in front of them, and our FO takes a calculated risk. Hicks and for that matter Gibson and Arcia, are just that much more ready when their next shot comes.

 

Interesting examples. Here's their final steps toward the majors.

 

Morneau: Full season of AA bookended by shorter stints there. 300 PA's in AAA.

 

Hunter: Most of 2 seasons in AA, 17 premature MLB at bats, followed by time in AAA and AA.

 

Cuddyer: Two seasons and >1000 PA's in AA, 18 Sept. callup AB's in the majors. Half a season in AAA before he sniffed the bigs again.

 

So none of them really skipped AAA. And none of them regularly exceeded a K rate of 20% throughout the minors like Hicks.

 

It's usually a pretty bad idea to ask a ballplayer to keep doing something he can't do. And that's what the Twins were doing by letting Hicks continue to flail against major league pitching, for three months after it was clear he wasn't ready.

[jokin]

I agree with you, but Gardy has gone on record saying Acria is a better RF than LF.

 

But that's really a distinction without a difference though, isn't it?