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With right-handed pitchers accounting for 70 to 75 percentage of all plate appearances each year, it was clear that in order to have success at the major league level Hicks was going to have to figure out a way to get hits off of them. The decision to stop hitting left-handed -- even for a brief stint -- was an acknowledgment that he was overmatched and lost at the plate. The brief experiment of hitting from the right-side only fizzled out not because his swing was bad but because Hicks realized that it is difficult to track professional-grade pitches from a perspective he had not seen since he was 15-years-old. The decision to return to switch-hitting was an admission that he would never going to be able to have success facing same-side matchups.
If he was going to overcome this deficiency, it was going to be as a left-handed hitter -- which would be no small task. Earlier in the offseason Hicks’ shortcomings at the plate were highlighted at Twins Daily. His left-handed swing mechanics were such that he would open on his front side well before the point of contact, leaving him unable to generate power or handle pitches on the outer half of the zone.
From both sides of the plate, Hicks has good bat speed. He has decent size and seemingly adds more muscle with each passing offseason. In theory he should be able to provide pop. In practice, however, he has not. According to ESPN/TruMedia, of all left-handed hitters with a minimum of 100 plate appearances, Hicks’ .078 hard hit average was the 7th lowest. For perspective, the light-hitting Ben Revere managed to post a .115 hard hit average. On the other end of the spectrum was Kennys Vargas whose .230 hard hit average from the left side was only bested by David Ortiz and Victor Martinez.
It seemed obvious that if Hicks is going to provide even league-average level production at the plate, he was going to need to make some wholesale changes -- maybe a timing mechanism or a complete rebuild. Turns out, that is exactly what he is doing.
During the first spring training game against the Red Sox, Twins’ broadcaster Cory Provus mentioned that Hicks had been working on incorporating a leg kick in his left-handed swing. Indeed, Hicks had swapped out the old toe-tap for the bigger leg kick:
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For Hicks, the new model is a much better swing. What does that mean going forward?
Hitters like Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson are the poster players for the argument for the pro-leg kick contingent. Donaldson, a hitter who used to have a toe-tap much like Hicks, found that the leg kick helped his timing and his ability to generate power. While productive if a hitter can master it, there are times when the leg kick can become a detriment if everything else is not working in unison. Cubs’ prospect Mike Olt felt his big leg kick was hindering his bat path so he has cut down on the height in order to make other aspects of his swing work. Likewise, Robinson Cano had a leg kick coming up in the Yankees system but eschewed that for his current model. There is no one-size-fits-all swing mechanics.
For Hicks, there are still plenty of moving parts to his approach at the plate including the mental side. Confidence, or lack thereof, was cited by manager Paul Molitor as one of the reasons Hicks has struggled so mightily at the plate. And what about away from the plate? So far this spring Hicks, according to the Star Tribune’s Phil Miller, was picked off of first and second in the same inning (but the play at first was ruled a balk). Meanwhile on Tuesday, Hicks had another baserunning gaffe when he forgot the situation and stopped halfway on an inning-ending fly ball to the outfield. Molitor yanked him from the game.
Hicks, to his credit, is putting in the work and demonstrating that he wants to improve his game. Nevertheless, Byron Buxton has looked the part of a MLB-ready center fielder but after the lost year that was 2014 the Twins will rightfully send him down for more seasoning. If the speedy footsteps of Mr. Buxton looking to take the position does not provide extra motivation for Hicks in 2015, who knows what will.
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