It's Impossible Not To Feel Bad For Aaron Hicks

We’re almost 40 games into the 2023 MLB season and the New York Yankees somehow find themselves in last place in the AL East. Even behind the Baltimore Orioles. Disgusting work. Not a great time for Aaron Hicks to have the worst year of his career.

Aaron Hicks flailing his bat on a 3-2 count with NO plan or power is the epitome of this season so far…

A masterclass in disappointment — so much talent, all of it injured. Being forced to watch this right here is PAIN. pic.twitter.com/0EtNt1Wu2p

— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) May 2, 2023

Here’s what Hicks has done so far this season:

59 at-bats
9 hits
15 strike outs
1 double
1 homer
4 RBIs
.153 batting average
27 OPS+
28 wRC+

Hicks is the worst player on the team and any other year, he’d be treated like Chris Carter or someone you make fun of when they inevitably strike out but you don’t actually put any weight behind their at-bats because there are 8 other stars in the lineup who are going to hit a bajillion homers and negate all of his mistakes.

But this current stacked AL East gives narrow room for error. Every at-bat matters this season as everyone in the lineup is struggling to get runs across home plate so Aaron Hicks’s struggles are magnified.

Aaron Hicks wasn’t always a bum. He was a first-round draft pick by the Minnesota Twins in 2008 and was on the Baseball America Top 100 prospect list 4 years in a row.

8 years later, the Twins sent him to The Bronx in exchange for catcher John Ryan Murphy. The trade was an absolute steal. The Yankees got an everyday outfielder and the Twins got a backup who wouldn’t even make the team the following season.

Hicks became a crucial member of this Yankees club that would lose to the Houston Astros every single postseason. All leading up to his 2018 season where he received MVP votes.

Here’s what Hicks did in 2018:

480 at-bats
119 hits
90 runs
27 bombs
79 RBIs
90 walks
.248 batting average
127 OPS+
89 wRC+
4.9 offensive WAR

As you can see, he used to be a very good baseball player. Unfortunately, I think that’s where it all went downhill.

Following his MVP-adjacent 2018 season, the Yankees rewarded Hicks with a 7-year $70 million contract extension. He started the next season with a back injury and ended it with a season-ending elbow injury.

It’s as if the second he put pen to paper on that contract, his career fell off a cliff. From that moment forward, Aaron Hicks would always be injured and never given enough time to get his swing back.

Fast forward to 2023 and Aaron Hicks is an automatic out. There was a play recently that totally encapsulated Hicks’s struggles.

Crazy sequence of events here in the pickle — both Cleavinger and Hicks seem to have gotten injured, can’t tell if he was tagged out initially but that was interesting… pic.twitter.com/etHOJgZkkH

— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) May 7, 2023

Hicks got caught in an awkward rundown between third base and home resulting in a clumsy dive to the ground that ended up injuring Rays pitcher, Garrett Cleavanger, and not only did he inadvertently cause that man to tear his ACL but he also dropped the ball which allowed Hicks an opportunity to score but then he was tagged out at the plate anyway and all Aaron Hicks did was create chaos for no fucking reason.

It’s easy to shout at the Yankees front office for continuing to play a guy who has clearly lost all confidence in himself but we all know what he’s capable of and he deserves a level of patience that Yankees fans are incapable of displaying.

But something happened this week that makes me feel terrible for the guy. On Monday night, Hicks hit a huge 2-run homer to help the Yankees take a 7-2 victory over the Las Vegas A’s.

AARON HICKS DID WHAT?! 2-run homer for the veteran… a much needed one at that 🙏 pic.twitter.com/0jBmzvmxPo

— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) May 9, 2023

Just when Hicks was turning the corner and finding his swing, he would immediately injure his hip the next game.

Aaron Hicks left the game in the third inning with a hip injury

pic.twitter.com/pRBAMsPV84

— 7️⃣7️⃣ WABC Sports (@77wabcsports) May 10, 2023

This sucks, man. Aaron Hicks has one of my favorite swings. He does that old school Barry Bonds thing when he hits a homer and immediately knows it’s gone and drops his bat like he’s dropping his big balls on the opposing pitcher’s face. And that swag is completely gone. At age 33, it looks like Hicks’s Yankees career is coming to an end.

At least he gets to go home to Tiger Woods’s niece every night. The Hicks family will be just fine.