Hicks: ‘Baseball wasn’t fun’ last season
Aaron Hicks was not on the favorable side of the Yankees faithful last season. The 33-year-old regularly had the boobirds singing during his forgettable 2022 season.
The outfielder slashed .216/.330/.313 with eight homers in 130 games last season, which ultimately led to the Yankees searching elsewhere for an answer in left field when they acquired Andrew Benintendi from the Royals prior to the trade deadline.
Hicks knows last season wasn’t exactly one for the ages. After playing a total of 145 games from 2019-21, the outfielder’s first full season since 2018 left a lot to be desired and potentially put his future in pinstripes in question.
“Baseball wasn’t fun,” Hicks said in an article published Tuesday in The Athletic. “It was kind of one of those things where your team is winning and that’s the ultimate goal.
“That’s what’s fun about the game: being able to win all of the time. But when you’re not contributing it kind of starts to feel like you’re not doing what you should be doing.
“I know the player I’m capable of being, and I wasn’t even close to it. That’s just the way the season went.”
The former first-round pick of the Minnesota Twins felt out of sorts last season, he told The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner.
With the Bombers in their dominant ways earlier in the season, owning the best record in baseball by four games with a 64-29 record prior to the All-star break, Hicks felt as if he was trying to force himself to be the hero with seemingly a different contributor to a win every single night.
Granted it did work once with his game-tying threerun homer in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Astros in June. However, it led to mostly ugly results.
“I felt like I was trying to force things that I normally wouldn’t,” Hicks said. “I was forcing myself to get big hits. I was forcing myself to swing out of the zone to do something to help the team win.
“A lot of that got me into trouble. Essentially, I just lost my approach.”
Giancarlo Stanton may play right field at times in New York Yankees’ home games this year and Aaron Judge could be shifted to the more spacious left field in the Bronx.
“I think I have more of a flow when I’m in the outfield,” Stanton said Tuesday after the Yankees’ second full-squad workout.
“Being in the outfield you’re more engaged in the game, whereas DH you’re inside a lot of the time, staying warm and hitting and kind of watching the game from the TV as opposed to being out more engaged.”
Gold Glove winner Harrison Bader, acquired at last
Outfield shift:
year’s trade deadline, figures to get the bulk of the starts in center.
“If we need to put Big G in right field at Yankee Stadium, move me to left, I don’t mind it,” Judge said. “I don’t mind switching around so we can have Bader, me and the Big G out there. We’ll get some (game) reps hopefully at spring training and be comfortable out there.”
Judge played 78 games in center last year and 73 in right. He hasn’t played left field since 2016 at Triple-a Scranton/wilkes-barre.
“I’m open to things like that, especially in the home ballpark,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We’ll just see how that goes in letting that play out. No decision on that yet, but it’s on my board.”
Stanton has battled a variety of injuries in four of his five seasons with New York. He was acquired from Miami following a 59-homer season in 2017 with the Marlins.