Dickerson obsesses over hitting
throw 10 pitches. I just want to get a hit every time I get up there.”
Dickerson’s passion for hitting and fierce competitiveness seems to be the product of both nature and nurture. Growing up in Mississippi, he and his older brother, Craig, went to the woods on their property, dug up some clay, hauled it back in a wheelbarrow and built a pitcher’s mound in their backyard. They nailed a 2by-4 into the mound to serve as the pitching rubber, and if the nails came undone, they’d hammer it down again.
Dickerson would make a game out of pretty much anything, whether basketball on a dirt court, tennis off a brick wall or a home run derby with the neighbors. He and Craig would hit tiny red berries from the yard or ping-pong balls with broomsticks and switches, all of which might have helped his naturally strong hand-eye coordination.
As a kid, Dickerson was a pitcher and infielder. He said he threw 93 mph when he was 16, but a shoulder injury derailed his pitching career.
“I knew my bat had to carry me,” Dickerson said. “And I was obsessed with it, relentless with it. It took over. When you’re passionate about something, you’ll do whatever to get there.”
Dickerson played baseball at Meridian Community College, and the Rockies selected him in the eighth round of the 2010 draft.
He made his big-league debut in 2013 and was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2016. Last year, after a down season, Dickerson made major changes to his offseason regimen, losing 25 pounds and improving core strength.
“Had some stuff going on with my back,” Dickerson said of his 2016 season. “Nobody knew about it. Played through it the whole year, so I decided to fix myself and learn more about my body, how the spine and everything works.”
It translated onto the field, and Dickerson was named an All-Star after hitting .312 with a .903 OPS and 17 homers in the first half of 2017. His numbers dipped in the second half, and Dickerson ended the year with a .282 average and 27 homers.
“I want to be in the .300s, and what I was doing was not getting me there, and that was frustrating; that was eating at me,” he said. “But a lot of people were like, ‘Why are you mad, man? You’re raking. I mean, look what you’re hitting!’ That’s why I say a lot of people would take what I was [hitting], what I did, but my expectations are a lot higher than other people’s expectations.”
Dickerson offered a few possible explanations for that second half. He didn’t slump during the first half, so it wasn’t unusual to have down spots later in the season.
Having hit leadoff for much of the season, he was moved around the batting order starting in June. He hit leadoff in 41 of the 57 games he played from April 2 to June 7, batting .336 with a .976 OPS during that span. Finally, because of the effort to drop weight last winter, he started lifting weights later than he usually would.
“I don’t know if [it was] fatigue, didn’t have my legs like I have before from being able to lift,” Dickerson said.
“I didn’t have a normal offseason, but that’s no excuse for me. I think it’s more mental. But this offseason I was able to have the most normal offseason since before the 2015 season.”
Whether it was mental, physical or some combination thereof, Dickerson now has a full offseason behind him and a chance to become a major piece of the Pirates’ rebuilt offense.
“You see a guy that’s working to fit into a new clubhouse, but he’s a great guy, an incredible competitor and has fit in well so far,” general manager Neal Huntington said.
“And you see a guy getting ready for the season and ready to go out and prove that he’s closer to the player that he was in the first half, prove that he’s healthy, prove that he’s ready to go out and win games.”