ZacharyA: The real concern should be about Aaron Hicks

 From commenter ZacharyA...

This biggest concern on the team is Aaron Hicks. Yes, more than Joey Gallo. Let me explain.

This isn't about Hicks' failures with RISP or his persistent health concerns, though those factors are related to the issue I see.

Hicks' ability to drive the ball has completely disappeared.

Obviously Hicks has never been a big-time slugger, but he's always had a sneaky bit of power in his bat.

From 2017-2021, Hicks averaged 1 HR every 20 AB and 1 XBH every 10 AB.

In 2022, he has 1 HR in 74 AB and that's his only XBH on the season.

That home run, by the way, was a 365-footer into the short porch. According to Statcast, it would've been a home run in exactly 1 ballpark, Yankee Stadium.

I can't emphasize this enough: it's not that Aaron Hicks' power has gotten worse. It's that Aaron Hicks' power is completely gone.

Look at these numbers for Hicks:

0 balls hit over 400 ft
0 balls hit over 380 ft
2 balls hit over 360 ft
3 balls hit over 340 ft
4 balls hit over 320 ft

We're halfway through May and Aaron Hicks has hit FOUR TOTAL BALLS further than 320 feet.

Three of those balls were lazy fly outs and the fourth was a lazy flyout that went into the short porch.

This is a serious problem for a starting outfielder.

Now, you might counter and say, "well Hicks doesn't need to drive the ball when he's drawing walks."

But why would pitchers continue to pitch Hicks so tentatively if he can't drive the ball at all? The league adjusts quickly, and I'm not the only one to notice what's going on here. Hicks is not going to run a 20% walk rate when he has the batting strength of a Little Leaguer.

I don't think we can simply dismiss this as part of the leaguewide decline in power output. The league has seen a roughly 5% decrease in SLG compared with the same timespan last year, thanks most likely to the deadened ball and/or widespread use of humidors. But this is not a 5% power drop for Hicks.

I suspect that the torn tendon in his wrist, suffered last season, is the major culprit here. The question now is: will Hicks regain his power as he moves further away from his surgery? Or is this the new Aaron Hicks?

And I further suspect that this issue is at least partly the cause of Hicks' terrible numbers with men on base. With bases empty, Hicks just doesn't swing very often, and when he does, he slaps at the ball, resulting in a bunch of walks and weakly hit singles. With men on base, Hicks aims for the seats, but he doesn't have that power anymore. He can't even get a ball into the gap. And so he never does anything productive with men aboard.