TAMPA — Let’s tease out the worst-case scenario here:
Say that 2018 proves to be Aaron Hicks’ peak. That he can’t stay sufficiently healthy and doesn’t develop any further, his late bloom turning out to be more of an exciting aberration.
It leaves the Yankees $70 million poorer, but — most importantly — only $10 million per season, through 2025, on their luxury-tax bill.
And if Hicks does keep trending positively? It’ll leave the Yankees punctuating one of their best trades with one of their best contracts.
What’s not to like about this seven-year commitment to a guy who has realized his star-level potential under the Yankees’ supervision?
“I believe there’s more gas in his tank, more mountains to climb,” Brian Cashman said Monday at George M. Steinbrenner Field, following a news conference to announce Hicks’ extension. “That’s from an individual standpoint and a plate standpoint. … He’s capable of impacting a game in a positive way on both sides of the ball, and I feel like we’re fortunate to have him.”
“I have this great opportunity,” the 29-year-old Hicks said. “I want to keep going. I don’t want to stop helping this team win. I want to go to war with them.”
Now he’ll rank among the Yankees’ most prominent resources, having foregone his free agency following this season to join the recently extended Luis Severino as well as core pieces such as Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton. The Yankees also are negotiating with walk-year power reliever Dellin Betances for an extension of his own.
It’s heady stuff for a franchise that hasn’t operated so proactively at such a high level since it bought out free-agent years of Andy Pettitte (2000), Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera (both 2001) and Jorge Posada (2002). It might be head-scratching for those who have pointed to Hicks’ underwhelming batting average (.248 last year, .236 for his career) and his meager track record compared to many of his contemporaries.
To appreciate Hicks requires a deeper dive, though. Consider that only three center fielders in all of baseball recorded an .800 OPS or better against both lefty and righty pitchers last season — the Angels’ Mike Trout, the Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon and the switch-hitting Hicks (thanks, FanGraphs). You’d rather have an .800 OPS than a .300 batting average.
And you’d rather have someone who works the count like Hicks, who — as the Yankees pointed out in their press release announcing the deal — ranked fifth in the majors last year with a 15.5 percent walk rate and seventh-best with a 20.9 percent chase rate. Throw in his excellent defense, visible to the naked eye and verified by the metrics, and you have a five-tool player — who has proven he can thrive in the Yankees’ fishbowl — at the price per annum of a good setup reliever.
Hicks’ signing obviously mitigates the Yankees’ need for Trout should he become a free agent after 2020, yet the dollars don’t block the possibility; Hicks could move to a corner-outfield spot.
“We placed a bet,” Cashman said. “I’m betting on him. He’s betting on himself.”
Cashman already bet on Hicks when he acquired him from the Twins for catcher John Ryan Murphy in November 2015, and then again when the Yankees stuck with him after an absolutely brutal maiden pinstriped voyage (.217/.281/.336) in 2016. That paid off with an 88-game breakout (.266/.372/.475) the next year, his playing time limited by injuries, and similar numbers last year (.248/.366/.467) in 137 games.
Those payoffs earned Hicks a bolder bet, one that nevertheless won’t crush the Yankees if it goes wrong.
Cashman said Monday that the Yankees have “diversified,” pointing out their array of relatively low-risk purchases this offseason as they climbed well over the $206 million luxury-tax threshold (they’re at about $223 million now). I think they should have signed Bryce Harper, too. However, by locking down Hicks, with each such act of diversification, their bet against Harper and Manny Machado looks increasingly likely to prevail.
