Article: Position Battle: Starting Center Fielder

[Oxtung]

Correction, he had about the worst first fourteen days of a major league career you can have. But he made adjustments and did decently for a rookie thereafter.

 

In March and April, his OPS was .356. In May is was .707. In June, it was .708. In July it was .671. You do him a disservice by ignoring the improvement he made last year. From May through July, Hicks had a higher OPS than Presley did in September (.699).

 

No he didn't. You keep looking at OPS but that is disguising his really poor contact skills. His power was better than expected but his game is still built around getting on base and using his speed. If he can't learn how to get on base higher than 26% of the time he will never make it.

 

Here are their full season stats their rookie years.

[TABLE=class: grid, width: 500]

Full Season

Avg

OBP

SLG

OPS

BB%

K%

Aaron Hicks

.192

.259

.338

.597

7.7

26.8

Torii Hunter

.255

.309

.380

.689

6.2

17.1

[/TABLE]

Hunter is better across the board by a fairly large margin. Torii's stats are wha a rookie hitter (who isn't a catcher or SS) should look like.

 

 

If you remove their worst 2 week stretch after which you claim Hicks got so much better:

[TABLE=class: grid, width: 500]

-2 Weeks

Avg

OBP

SLG

OPS

BB%

K%

Aaron Hicks

.222

.273

.400

.673

6

25

Torii Hunter

.270

.357

.405

.762

6

16

[/TABLE]

Again, Hunter is better across the board by a wide margin. He showed good skills getting on base.

 

Here are Hunter's April-June numbers: .233/.286/.336 OPS-.622

Here are Hunter's July-September numbers: .286/.341/.441 OPS-.782

 

That is improvement.

Hunter is not a particularly good comp for Hicks.

[Oxtung]

I guess I question how much of Hick's struggles were due to lack of "knowledge". We can take that math student, send him to take part in the school play, feel comfortable that he has his lines down, and then watch him step onto the big stage under the bright lights and stumble through his lines. I wonder if Hicks had a bit of stage fright. Sometimes it just takes getting used to the spotlights.

 

He played in 81 games. It doesn't take that long to get over stage fright. Or else he never will, like the yips.