The Cardinals will open the season with former closer Jordan Hicks as their No. 5 starter, reports John Denton of MLB.com (Twitter link). The flamethrowing sinkerballer has appeared in 112 Major League games but will be making his first big league start whenever he takes the mound this year.
There’s been talk of bringing Hicks to camp and stretching him out as a starter dating back to late last season, but it’s nevertheless something of a surprise that he’ll be tabbed for rotation work to begin the season. Were it not for injuries to Jack Flaherty and Alex Reyes, Hicks may well have opened the year as a member of the St. Louis bullpen once again, but instead it seems he’s beaten out offseason additions Drew VerHagen and Aaron Brooks for the final starting job behind Adam Wainwright, Steven Matz, Dakota Hudson and Miles Mikolas.
Working as a starting pitcher isn’t an entirely foreign role for Hicks, it should be noted. He appeared in 37 minor league games before making his big league debut, and 34 of those came out of the rotation. The Cards are still in the process of building Hicks up, as Denton adds that the Cards are hoping he’ll be able to complete two to three innings his first time out against the Royals next Tuesday.
The move of Hicks into the rotation comes on the heels of a two-year stretch in which the right-hander has thrown just 10 Major League innings. The 25-year-old righty underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2019, sidelining him for the remainder of that season and setting the stage for a return in summer of the 2020 season. Of course, the 2020 season wound up not even beginning until late July. Hicks, who had experienced a slight setback in his rehab and was deemed a high-risk individual due to Type 1 diabetes, opted out of that 2020 season, citing health and safety concerns.
He returned to the mound early in the 2021 campaign but landed back on the shelf just a month into the season, due to soreness in his surgically repaired right elbow. Hicks was initially shut down from throwing for a six-week period, but he wound up unable to resume throwing until late August. At that point, the Cardinals opted for a cautious approach to his rehab rather than rushing him back and dropping him into the middle of a postseason push. Hicks did pitch in a pair of games in the Arizona Fall League, and he’s been healthy enough this spring that the Cards feel comfortable pushing him in a new role.
Whether the move to a starting role is permanent or not remains to be seen, but it’s easy to see why the Cardinals are intrigued by the idea of Hicks shouldering a larger workload. The right-hander is one of the game’s most electric talents, averaging a blistering 100.6 mph on a sinker that has helped him post a 63% ground-ball rate in his career. Hicks doesn’t rack up strikeouts quite like some might expect for a pitcher with his velocity (22.5% strikeout rate), and his 13.4% walk rate is a bit concerning. Still, a ground-ball pitcher with this type of velocity and the Cardinals’ all-world infield defense behind him could take his game to a new level if he’s healthy and able to work a notable slate of innings in 2022.
Roster construction in reverse.
Right makes more sense to give those inning to Gensis Cebrera
Genesis is still having MAJOR control issues and does not look confident/comfortable on the mound at this point.
Yeah, but will this prove to be Exodus or a Revelation?
Hard to say…I’ll testify later in the season 🙂
This isn’t gonna end well…
He’s had TJ, he’s more mature and isn’t trying to throw 105 as much.
There’s a lot of upside. The guy has starter stuff, so it’s a good opportunity to help him set his mind on being a starter again…which he was before he was relegated to the bullpen because he was wild and brittle.
Might as well go for it now and see what happens.
So is he gonna be the opener then? How long can this man throw 104 mph?
Gunna find out.
In a recent interview he stated he is intentionally taking a bit off his fastball. I assume that was in anticipation of starting. Doubt we see 104 as a starter.
Until his arm comes apart again unfortunately
3 IP in Spring Training? More of an Opener than a Starter.
As a Brewers fan I absolutely love this. Rotation is falling apart and we have not even played the first game.
As a Cards fan I love your offense.
Relax you two and let’s crap on the cubs instead
#flytheL
Bats are easy to acquire in season. Good luck picking up starters man.
Please stop jinxing the brewers.
We know we got good pitching
Be humble #kendrick
As a Red Sox fan… I’m just going to remind you of Daniel Bard. That’s all
Daniel Bard, Neftali Feliz, Matt Bush. need I say more?
Bard’s back up to 101 with a nasty new change-up this spring.
After having his career derailed for almost a decade.
The Rangers did this with several guys and it always ended poorly. Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando and Matt Bush immediately come to mind.
Elite late-inning relievers aren’t valued enough by most of these clubs. And few of those guys are built to hold up to full starter’s workload.
Always ended poorly? CJ Wilson worked out.
That’s fair. But CJ Wilson wasn’t the type of big-armed, high-velo reliever we’re talking about here. He’d also already had Tommy John before that move to the rotation.
He also was a good reliever, not a great one, so he didn’t have the same type of value that these others did as a late-inning guy.
Eck and smoltz
Cardinals love flip flopping their pitchers from the rotation to the pen and vice versa..
they like doing that, but it ruins the youngsters arms
Like Adam Wainright’s?
Waino has been on the DL for much of his career! Look it up! Until he finally found this arm slot and started tossing slop he was DONE!
Incorrect!
Not true, Dad. He’s been pretty darn durable…and his 40 year-old slop was pretty damn effective last year.
Call him old, call him a junkballer. I call him a champion and a hell of good guy. And watching batter after batter flail while he paints with an 88mph cutter and one of the best curveballs in the league is just pure baseball fun!
Go Cards!
Hopefully he has more control of the pitches and not being all over the place if he has to pitch 6 innings. Of course he has to be stretched out further.
The Cards are hoping for 2 or 3 innings in his first start. I’m hoping for 2 or 3 innings on the season. This is a good move though. Give him a chance. They have substantially more invested in him than they do in VerHagen or Brooks. Plus, his upside is greater than either of those guys. They had better keep auditioning relievers though.
so they have Oviedo, Woodford, Pallente, Brooks, and VerHagen as obvious options and they do this?
Hicks has always wanted to start. The Cards are just indulging him. He will break down soon enough. Oviedo needs more time in the minors to improve his control. Woodford will pitch out of the bullpen without whining about his role. The other three can be utilized as needed. I kind of liked VerHagen for the 5th spot myself, but I’m ok with giving Hicks a chance. We need to know what we have in him more so than with the other guys.
I hope Hicks has a better head on his shoulders than C. Mart. Sure has seemed like they were twins over the past few years!!
He’s had TJ, he’s more mature and isn’t trying to throw 105 as much.
There’s a lot of upside. The guy has starter stuff, so it’s a good opportunity to help him set his mind on being a starter again…which he was before he was relegated to the bullpen because he was wild and brittle.
Might as well go for it now and see what happens.
I remember when the brewers were thinking about this with Hader. Leave it alone and let him be a bullpen piece. Kids gotta learn some control. Cards have some decent young starting options. This is a stupid decision
This will go well ….. for the 3 starts he manages before he goes back on the IL.
Ahh, Nostradamas!
Same ole story will exists for both Reyes and Flaherty.
You can expect all 3 to follow Brett Cecil’s example!! Always the potential of great stardom. But injuries and lack of conditioning will end their 2022 season!!
The number of pitchers going down with injuries in the first month this season will be record breaking. So many teams can barely scrap together a rotation and the season hasn’t even started. Depth of pitching is paramount. Nothing else is going to matter. Those skinflint organizations and GMs that failed to prepare are going to suffer.
XD. The dumbest move I’ve seen all year. A VerHagen/Brooks tandem as the #5 starter is a much better idea. After all, they can actually start and have experience throwing more innings in a season than Hicks has his entire MLB career
Its actually an intelligent move.
Hicks needs to be managed as a starter to warm up gradually and methodically and not be used back to back to back days. for unknown number of pitches.
This way they can control his number of pitches and rest. . They also have him reducing his mph to last longer and ease the stress on his arm.
He can always hit 104 once in a while if he needs a big K.. just makes 104 more effective if the hitter doesn’t see it over and over.
He can slowly ramp up his number of pitches and innings and may just be a great starter as he has huge upside. Also , starters are more valuable than relievers. So they maximize his value.
Couldn’t get guys out as a RP, so sure, let’s make him a starter!
????? Just unreplyibly nonsense!
I don’t think it’s a given that throwing 5-6 innings every 5 days will do more damage than throwing as hard as he possibly can for an inning 3-4 times a week.
DH baseball is made for 3 inning starters. Somebody has to start a bullpen game.
Most likely he has been pushing for this assignment. Obviously pitchers want to be in the rotation long term. More money available for starting pitchers. He may surprise us and if it does not work out they can place him back in the pen where he will likely accept it knowing that the opportunity was presented. Besides this role is to be considered an opener. Rotations are going to have more openers in the future.
Carlos Martinez probably has some words of “Wisdom” for Hicks. Just because you want to be a starter doesn’t mean you should be one.
Carlos Never had a thought of wisdom , let alone words.
Hahahaha….you just accused Carlos of having wisdom, you better pack for your trip cuz your credibility is long gone.
The new Carlos Martinez
Carlos lost his gig because he’s a head case with a crappy work ethic who didn’t rehab his shoulder in the offseason.
Hicks does not match any of the above descriptors. He works hard, he’s got talent and he’s not a head case.
I don’t understand all the negativity towards Hicks. He’s talented, yes he’s been injured too but he’s also still young.
You all act as though there have not been any pitchers who join the MLB as a reliever that then turn into a starter – that have also had TJ surgery. You don’t have to look too far down the dugout to see a shining example of this in Adam Wainwright.
But by all means, be dramatic and pessimistic before Hicks even gets his chance.
@binni using wanio is a bad example he was never going to be rp he was always going to be a stater. they were just getting his feet wet in the majors and only wound up the closer because izzy got hurt.
Hicks has starter stuff. He’s had a lot of time to rehab his TJ.
He’s been a starter his whole career until he started getting hurt.
hope it works out i can see hicks being a good starter if he can get better command of his pitches and take some speed of his fb and save the max effort for later innings
This is a horrible idea. Why turn a bullpen guy who’s only pitched 10 innings in the past 2 years into a starter?
Opener.
Not the same thing.
And he’s fully rehabbed from TJ and has starter stuff, so why not nudge him closer to being what he’s born to do…start games.
When you’ve got a Ferrari, you should drive it. The Cards have enough depth to do this. It will be a building process, but he’s been a starter his whole career coming up. Having him pitch two innings at the beginning of a game is less risky since he can control his warmup instead of sitting on the bench waiting to warm up.
There’s no established closer on the team, so if you’re being careful with the guy, why not give him some routine/predictability to get to warmed up at his own pace?
The move has a ton of upside. Still makes me nervous, but it does actually make some sense.
Nice to read intelligent posts
Rare.
While found the idea of Hicks “starting” strange at first the more I’ve thought about the more I like it. Best case scenario Flaherty rejoins the rotation sometime next month and Hicks excels and becomes the sixth starter when needed. Worst case scenario Flaherty ends up missing a large chunk of the season and Hicks flounders as a starter. In which case the Cardinals have bought themselves some time to explore other options, namely either promoting a prospect like Liberatore, Thompson, or Oviedo or working out a trade for a starting pitcher. And there’s always the fallback of Woodford and VerHagen in the short term if neither of those options are immediately available. There’s also the scenarios where either Flaherty’s out and Hicks steps up and claims the starting job or Flaherty returns the Hick experiment was a failure. The only thing that really makes this viable solution to the Cardinals fifth starter woes though is the 28-man roster. With it they can afford to let the starting pitcher only go 2-innings while they stretch him out. It does put a deadline on arrangement though, they only have until the roster go back to 26 in May to find a real starter, be that Hicks, Flaherty, or someone else.
Yep to all of this.
The Cards have Hicks and this use of him makes sense if they’re smart about it.
At some point the team has to give the guy a chance to succeed. It’s a little risky, but has a ton of upside.
Exactly!
Agreed. To me it was the biggest question going into the offseason. Hicks and Reyes both wanted to start. They’re both too fragile to count on either as a regular member of the rotation, but they’re both too talented to stash in Memphis. So what do you do? Reyes gets hurt (predictably) which solves one problem. This arrangement solves the other. Let’s see what he’s got so we can make longer term plans.
Exactly!
Jordan Hicks making his first start tonight against the Miami Marlins. Lets see how it goes tonight.