Hicks’ future role uncertain
SAN FRANCISCO – Five years ago at age 16, Jordan Hicks participated in a youth tournament in Atlanta and attended a Braves game, where he was blown away by the sight of then-Cincinnati Reds reliever Aroldis Chapman repeatedly pumping fastballs above 100 mph.
Now Hicks has replaced Chapman as baseball’s premier fireballer.
The St. Louis Cardinals rookie has thrown the three fastest pitches in the majors this season, two of them at 105 mph, and seven of the top 10.
He leads the majors with 286 pitches reaching triple-digit speed, nearly twice as many as Chapman’s 153, the second-highest total.
Statcast figures indicate Hicks averages the hardest two-seam fastball (100.2 mph), sinker (99.8) and four-seam fastball (99.5) in the game.
Much like Chapman, Hicks began his pro career as a starter and continued to perform those duties until making the Cardinals out of spring training as a setup man, jumping all the way from Class A.
But while the Cuban lefty soon proved himself more adept as an intimidating closer, Hicks’ future role remains undetermined. He was climbing the organizational ladder quickly as a starter, going 14-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 34 appearances in the low minors, 31 of them starts.
“He’s too young for us to destine him for the bullpen. I think that’s still part of the conversation,” manager Mike Matheny said. “We had Trevor Rosenthal here for years getting 40 saves for us and still talking about him as a starter. It’s not something you just abandon. If he can hold that kind of stuff that he’s been showing for us late in the game, if he can hold that for six innings, that’s pretty valuable too.”
On the other hand, in this age of “bullpenning” and game-changing setup relievers like Josh Hader, Andrew Miller and Archie Bradley, potent young arms don’t always wind up in the starting rotation.
Plus, Hicks has developed a taste for the bullpen he didn’t know was there before this season.
“I like it more than I thought I would and I’ve really adapted well,” said Hicks, who’s 3-1 with a 2.56 ERA and 39 strikeouts in 452⁄3 innings. “At first I wasn’t used to throwing every single day, or maybe back to back. I’d never done that before. But now I feel really good.”
The Cardinals, who have the National League’s second-lowest starters’ ERA at 3.48, needed to bolster the bullpen going into the season and took a chance on the inexperienced Hicks in a new role, getting an immediate payoff. He allowed one run in his first nine outings.
“The guy’s got a gifted fastball, that’s for darn sure,” pitching coach Mike Maddux said. “He’s able to do something nobody else can do. He’s got a big advantage over hitters because the only time they see something like that is when they’re going against him.”
Looking for further bullpen help, St. Louis also signed Greg Holland to a one-year contract shortly after Opening Day, and that move hasn’t worked. The veteran closer has struggled mightily to the tune of an 8.27 ERA, blowing both of his save chances before yielding the ninth-inning role.
The Cardinals are tied for the third-fewest saves in the National League with 21 (in 34 chances), part of the reason they’re merely hovering over .500 at 46-43. Though veteran Bud Norris, himself a former starter, has claimed the closer role by converting 17 saves in 19 opportunities, it’s not hard to envision Hicks handling those duties sometime in the future.
Asked to project his role five years down the road, Hicks said he’d want to be a starter or a closer. He enjoys the adrenaline rush he gets entering late in the game, and the option to go all-out without having to conserve energy for a long stint.
“It’s definitely a different feeling because you hear that phone ring and you go, ‘Is it going to be me? All right, let’s go,”’ he said.
Regardless of his role, batters don’t feel all that comfortable stepping in against Hicks’ heat, which he combines with a decent slider and enough wildness (4.5 walks per nine innings) to put some fear in their hearts.
In Saturday’s eighth-inning outing against the San Francisco Giants, who reached him for a run but couldn’t tie the game, 20 of Hicks’ 25 pitches – all but his sliders – lit up the radar gun at a minimum of 100 mph.
Giants second baseman Alen Hanson said that kind of velocity forces hitters to zero in on just the fastball so they can try to catch up, leaving them vulnerable to breaking pitches. So if he had his druthers, Hanson would just as soon see Hicks join the rotation.
“I’d rather face him as a starter because he wouldn’t pitch that same way or have that kind of stuff. He could tire out and come down to 96, 97,” Hanson said.
“This way, you may have a starter throwing 91, 92, then in the eighth inning they bring in someone like that with that kind of potent arm.”