A new kind of delivery for prospect
Yankees pitcher a DoorDash driver
BETTENDORF, Iowa – The first delivery of the day for New York Yankees pitching prospect T.J. Sikkema is the Home Instead Senior Care facility in Bettendorf.
Sikkema, who pulled up to the front door shortly after 11 a.m. May 29, in his 2019 Ford Raptor, stops the truck so his girlfriend Amanda Brainerd can retrieve the three items they’ve picked up from Chipotle Mexican Grill in Davenport that are sitting in the backseat.
Before Brainerd reaches the door, Sikkema quickly unlocks the door for her.
“That’s my job right now,” Sikkema says from the driver’s seat of his black truck. “I’ve got to unlock the door when she gets out.”
With the spread of the coronavirus putting the start of the professional baseball season on hold, Sikkema can’t be on a Minor League Baseball mound.
Instead, the former star at Central DeWitt High School in Iowa is spending the summer in Iowa working with his girlfriend as a driver for DoorDash. While he waits and wonders if the season will even start, Sikkema is staying in shape and staying busy making deliveries throughout different towns.
“It’s fun,” Sikkema said.
This wasn’t supposed to be how Sikkema would spend the 2020 season.
The Yankees had high hopes for him when they selected him with the 38th overall pick in last year’s drafted. The value of the slot pick was $1.95 million and was enough to lure him away from his senior season at Missouri.
Sikkema had just begun showing the Yankees what he could do. During his abbreviated stint in the minors last season, Sikkema compiled an 0.84 earned run average with 13 strikeouts in 10.2 innings for New York’s short-season affiliate in Staten Island. He entered this season ranked the 17th-best prospect in the organization by MLB.com.
“I think it was going to be pretty big,” Sikkema said of the season. “It was going to be my first full year in pro ball. So, I think I had a lot to prove.”
On March 13, MLB suspended spring training. Sikkema got stuck in Tampa Bay. When a pair of New York’s minor league players tested positive for coronavirus, Sikkema was forced to stay and quarantine with some of his teammates for 14 days. He returned to Iowa toward the end of March where he’s been ever since, living with his parents in DeWitt.
There are no games for Sikkema to play and no opportunities to move up the system right now.
Instead, Sikkema gets up most days around 11 a.m., and does some workouts at home. He’ll do ab and dumbbell exercises and play catch every day. Sikkema throws a bullpen two days a week at an indoor complex called Baseball Fever in Delmar.
That’s what you would expect from any professional pitcher while they wait for the season to possibly start. But what stands out about Sikkema is what he does with some of his other time. For a few days each week, Sikkema will make the 20-minute drive to Davenport with Brainerd earn some extra cash delivering food and groceries.
“It’s a good time,” Sikkema said. Sikkema and Brainerd got the idea from his sister, Taryn, a waitress at Applebee’s. When the coronavirus led to the shutdown of restaurants across the country, Taryn went looking for other work. She tried DoorDash. Their mother, Amy, didn’t want her going out on her own. So Amy joined in and started having fun with it.
“She kind of got us into it,” Sikkema said. “Amanda, one night, we were talking over dinner and she was like, ‘Maybe we should try that, T.J. — it’s really fun.’” So they signed up for the venture. There weren’t opportunities for them in the small town of DeWitt, so Sikkema and Brainerd drive to Davenport, Bettendorf, Clinton and some other surrounding cities. Some days they’ll use
Brainerd’s Sonata. Others, they’ll hop in Sikkema’s truck, his biggest signing splurge.
“He’s pretty good with directions,” Brainerd said.
Sikkema has equipped his truck with hand sanitizer, gloves, wipes and masks. He usually stays in the vehicle when Brainerd — wearing a mask — picks up and drops off orders.
If the two have to deliver groceries, he’ll put on a mask and help out.
Before the start of every session, Brainerd packs a lunch for them to eat when there is down time or they’re making runs.
“It’s pretty good money,” Sikkema said. “We’re making anywhere from $15 to $25 an hour.”
The cash, largely, not for Sikkema, who has his signing bonus money and gets $400 dollars a week from the Yankees. It’s for Brainerd, a graduate of Wartburg College who is starting an online grad program at Kansas State to become a registered dietitian.
But the money isn’t the only reason why they’re doing it. For Sikkema, it’s a way to spend time together. He also looks at it as a way to do some good during tough times. Some of their trips are to local grocery stores to pick things up for elderly costumers.
“It’s not all about the money,” he said. “It’s a little bit about getting out and it’s a little bit about just trying to help people.”
Despite being one of the biggest prospects on one of baseball’s most storied franchises, Sikkema never gets recognized for his sports prowess.
He’s still relatively unknown outside of DeWitt. No one knows that one of the Yankees’ most prized pitching prospects is delivering their food. But the vehicle has raised some red flags, like during a Buffalo Wild Wings run to a customer at an apartment complex.
“I got out and the guy was like, ‘Wow, is that your truck?’” Brainerd recalled. “And I’m like, ‘No, it’s not mine.’ He’s like, ‘Oh wow, that’s a really nice truck.’”
That’s how Sikkema prefers to work right now, under the radar. He knows that won’t last forever.
Eventually, games will start back up, and Sikkema will continue to try to climb toward the Major Leagues. He doesn’t know when that day will come or if it’ll even come in 2020. But in the meantime, he’s trying to enjoy this job and make the most of the big curveball that’s been thrown his way this summer.
“The first couple of times were a little stressful just trying to figure out the whole directions thing and how it’s the best way to do that,” Sikkema said. “But now that we have it figured out, it’s actually pretty fun.”