What about trading Hicks?

[AROG]

I think the best option for the Twins to get good young talent is to trade good young talent. Teams like the Texas Rangers are dying for good young talent in the OF and would be willing to give something up for that talent. The two players I had in mind were Nick Tepesch and Justin Grimm. Both are good but don't factor in much in what Texas is doing. They have a surplus of young good pitchers and gaps to fill. The more likely candidate is Grimm but Tepesch may be available as well.

 

What do you think?

[Badsmerf]

Who would want Aaron Hicks right now? Until he proves he can hit from the left side, he is an average player.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I don't see Hicks getting much... That and this means there will be a need for an OF in the next wave. We may have that anyways if Hicks fails, but given his value, I just don't see this making sense.

[AROG]

Aaron Hicks may not have hit that much this year but the talent is there and he is still young. GM's love talent and would possibly trade for him to get him cheap, and besides, Grimm didn't exactly have a good year either.

[SpitefulRabbit617]

At least if Hicks fails, he can fall back on becoming a pitcher. I would take that over any of the subpar returns. Dude can still field like a boss though.

[TD Mac]

Buy low, sell high. Never the opposite.

[nicksaviking]

Aaron Hicks may not have hit that much this year but the talent is there and he is still young. GM's love talent and would possibly trade for him to get him cheap, and besides, Grimm didn't exactly have a good year either.

 

He's going to be cheap for many years in terms of money. Or did you mean cheap in terms of what the other GM would have to give up to get him? If that's what you meant, well, I think the answer is quite obvious as to why the Twins shouldn't trade Hicks.

[James]

No reason to give up on Hicks yet. Especially now that his value is so low. Maybe I'm just being optimistic here, but I think there is still plenty of time for Hicks to turn things around and prove he's a serviceable MLBer. Maybe not the super star we hoped many years ago, but I think he could still have an impact, especially if he and Buxton are in the same outfield.

[gunnarthor]

I like Hicks a lot. He might be slow to develop but so was Morneau. A future outfield of Hicks/Buxton/Arcia could be freaking awesome. No sense in trading him now while his value is this low since he hasn't shown he can hit above AA. I think they should let him start in AAA and bring him up to after they trade Willingham and keep him up here from then on.

[kab21]

Who would want Aaron Hicks right now? Until he proves he can hit from the left side, he is an average player.

 

Until he proves he can hit from the left side, he is a 4th OF'er.

[stringer bell]

Aaron Hicks proved very little in his half year stint as the Twins centerfielder. His hitting was abysmal overall (although he improved after an historically awful month of April), his fielding was okay, but no better (again he improved as the year went on). Hicks displayed enough potential to believe that he can be a better than average outfielder. As for hitting left handed, IIRC the Twins played against a lot of right handers in April when Aaron couldn't buy a hit off of anyone. I think this (and the four homers he hit RH) skews his splits considerably. Hicks had only 66 PAs vs. left handed pitchers in his half season of work. To me, that is too small a sample to draw any conclusions.

[Joe A. Preusser]

I like Hicks a lot. He might be slow to develop but so was Morneau. A future outfield of Hicks/Buxton/Arcia could be freaking awesome. No sense in trading him now while his value is this low since he hasn't shown he can hit above AA. I think they should let him start in AAA and bring him up to after they trade Willingham and keep him up here from then on.

 

Hmm, I guess we know where opposing teams are going to try to hit the ball against that outfield...

[Badsmerf]

Until he proves he can hit from the left side, he is a 4th OF'er.

I wasn't going to push it too far, but I agree.

[kab21]

Aaron Hicks proved very little in his half year stint as the Twins centerfielder. His hitting was abysmal overall (although he improved after an historically awful month of April), his fielding was okay, but no better (again he improved as the year went on). Hicks displayed enough potential to believe that he can be a better than average outfielder. As for hitting left handed, IIRC the Twins played against a lot of right handers in April when Aaron couldn't buy a hit off of anyone. I think this (and the four homers he hit RH) skews his splits considerably. Hicks had only 66 PAs vs. left handed pitchers in his half season of work. To me, that is too small a sample to draw any conclusions.

 

Nobody was making statistical decisions based on this year's L/R splits. His stats hitting lefthanded reinforce Hicks' biggest question mark coming up through the minors. He has always struggled from the left side of the plate.

[Marta Shearing]

I was really looking forward to an outfield of Kepler/Buxton/Hicks someday.

[cmathewson]

The time to trade him was last spring. Now his value is at a low ebb.

[Mike Sixel]

No way they deal him now. Maybe stop switch hitting......that would be as good as a trade.

[Kwak]

My-oh-my how the faithful value anybody called "prospect". Did people forget how many balls fell in front of Hicks?--his defensive metrics suffered significantly because of that. Hitting? 'nuf said. "Tools"?--of course but they are expected for his level of baseball--it's results that seperate the stars from the duds.

[Alex]

I like Hicks a lot. He might be slow to develop but so was Morneau. A future outfield of Hicks/Buxton/Arcia could be freaking awesome. No sense in trading him now while his value is this low since he hasn't shown he can hit above AA. I think they should let him start in AAA and bring him up to after they trade Willingham and keep him up here from then on.

 

Some players are slow to develop because they aren't going to develop, so stating one player struggled doesn't mean all struggling players are destined for greatness, which is what this kind of stance purports.

 

BTW, did you take a look at Morneau when comparing him to Hicks? They're development has been nothing alike except when they made their debut. Morneau destroyed the minors and didn't have a down year there. When called up he did struggle for 115 ABs, but that's it. He was then an above average hitter except for 2005 when he was slightly below average.

 

All that said, I wouldn't trade Hicks unless he does bring back starting pitching, which I don't think he will by himself. This should be true of almost any player in the organization except maybe Sano or Buxton. Of course, that's why we're in this predicament, we don't have enough players that could bring that back.

[Marta Shearing]

My-oh-my how the faithful value anybody called

"prospect". Did people forget how

many balls fell in front of Hicks?--his defensive metrics suffered significantly because of that. Hitting?

'nuf said. "Tools"?--of course but they

are expected for his level of baseball--

 

it's results that seperate the stars from the duds.

Im all for trading him for the right return, but exactly what would you expect to get for him right now after struggling and being publicly humiliated by gardenhire.

[jm3319]

I was really looking forward to an outfield of Kepler/Buxton/Hicks someday.

 

Don't kid yourself. All we need is Buxton covering the entire outfield and 2 extra guys stacking the infield.

[Oldgoat_MN]

The time to trade him was last spring. Now his value is at a low ebb.

 

Yes, except last spring he looked like he could be a ROY candidate in a position where we had just traded our way into near desperation.

 

I guess we now know why we got so much for those two center fielders.

[gunnarthor]

Some players are slow to develop because they aren't going to develop, so stating one player struggled doesn't mean all struggling players are destined for greatness, which is what this kind of stance purports.

 

BTW, did you take a look at Morneau when comparing him to Hicks? They're development has been nothing alike except when they made their debut. Morneau destroyed the minors and didn't have a down year there. When called up he did struggle for 115 ABs, but that's it. He was then an above average hitter except for 2005 when he was slightly below average.

 

I mentioned Morneau b/c Morneau was a very highly rated prospect who took a while to play well. Over his first 1000 AB he was a 98 OPS+ hitter amassed less than 2 WAR. In early 2006, fans were dumping on him. Some were hoping the Twins would trade him for Ty Wiggington and others thought that was too much to hope for.

 

They are different types of players - Morneau, at his best, was a clear power hitter and that was his prospect status. Hicks would never hit that well but Hicks was always a good prospect, even when he had "bad" years, he was a better hitter than his league would suggest. Fangraphs wrote about the concern of a toolsy guy not developing as fast as people wanted and how it colors peoples views of him. Like Aaron Hicks, Buxton Will Require Patience | FanGraphs Baseball

[cmathewson]

I definitely don't think you give up on the guy because he struggled this year. I think the best comp is Torii Hunter, who struggled mightily when he first came up, but eventually adapted. That said, 2014 is a make or break year for him in this organization. We need to see him thrive at the major league level at some point next year.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I definitely don't think you give up on the guy because he struggled this year. I think the best comp is Torii Hunter, who struggled mightily when he first came up, but eventually adapted. That said, 2014 is a make or break year for him in this organization. We need to see him thrive at the major league level at some point next year.

 

I suspect he's going to spend most if not all of next year in Rochester, no matter how well he's doing. The only exception sans a Sept callup I could see is if Presley is just down right awful and Hicks is hitting .280/.400/.500 or something absurd like that.

[lightfoot789]

What kind of OF do you want in 2016? - Mr. Everything (5 Tool / Buxton) CF - Solid Hitter who generates 20 HRs (Arcia) LF - Great Defender with modest average and OBP (Hicks) RF

or Mr. Everything (5 Tool / Buxton) CF - Solid Hitter who generates 20 HRs (Arcia) LF - HR Hitter who produces runs and modest fielder (Walker) RF. I want more offense in my OF corner hitters. Even if that OFer became Kepler. We need offense to protect our modest pitching rotation too.

[jay]

This fangraphs article on Victorino's grand slam got me thinking about Hicks:

The Grand Slam That Almost Wasn?t | FanGraphs Baseball

 

Why? Well, they point this out:

"Victorino has switch hit for his entire major league career, but gave up batting left-handed in early August... Since giving up batting left-handed, Victorino has had one of the most productive stretches of his career."

 

The grand slam Victorino hit against Veras to send the Sox to the WS? Did it batting righty vs a righty. Looking at his numbers, the only adverse effect has been a decrease in his BB/K rates while he's put up monster numbers.

 

The biggest knock I've seen against Hicks giving up switching hitting and batting righty full-time is the adjustment period, maybe a full season or more. If a guy like Victorino can successfully make the change away from switch hitting in mid-season and promptly put up impressive numbers, is this maybe an overrated concern?

[Alex]

This fangraphs article on Victorino's grand slam got me thinking about Hicks:

The Grand Slam That Almost Wasn?t | FanGraphs Baseball

 

Why? Well, they point this out:

"Victorino has switch hit for his entire major league career, but gave up batting left-handed in early August... Since giving up batting left-handed, Victorino has had one of the most productive stretches of his career."

 

The grand slam Victorino hit against Veras to send the Sox to the WS? Did it batting righty vs a righty. Looking at his numbers, the only adverse effect has been a decrease in his BB/K rates while he's put up monster numbers.

 

The biggest knock I've seen against Hicks giving up switching hitting and batting righty full-time is the adjustment period, maybe a full season or more. If a guy like Victorino can successfully make the change away from switch hitting in mid-season and promptly put up impressive numbers, is this maybe an overrated concern?

 

Yeah, it's something they should try, but I'd be surprised if the Twins do that.

[mudcat14]

The two players I had in mind were Nick Tepesch and Justin Grimm. ...The more likely candidate is Grimm but Tepesch may be available as well.

 

What do you think?

 

The Rangers would never trade Grimm, since they've already traded him to the Cubs in the Garza deal.

[Kwak]

To modify things slightly: "...Victorio has hit for his entire major league career..." Hicks would need to spend all of 2014 in Rochester to adjust and prove that this adjustment works!