The Giants announced that they have placed right-hander Jordan Hicks on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. Righty Austin Warren was recalled as the corresponding move. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle relayed the details prior to the official announcement (X link one and two).
Hicks was warming up during Friday’s game but didn’t eventually enter the contest. He later said he felt a “zinger” down his arm while getting ready, per Slusser, though he stayed with the club through the weekend. He appeared in Saturday’s game but with diminished velocity. His sinker usually averages between 96 and 97 miles per hour but was around 94 in his most recent outing, per Statcast. It now seems the club has decided to give him some time to rest and heal up.
It’s unclear how long Hicks will be out of action but it’s a blow to the pitching staff regardless. Hicks was in the starting rotation for much of the year but seemed to run out of steam, as his results tapered off as time went on. He had a 3.01 earned run average after his start on June 11, but then posted a 6.83 ERA from June 17 to July 28. He’s been in a bullpen role lately, with six scoreless outings to start the month of August before he allowed one earned run in his Saturday appearance.
Earlier this month, the club put Randy Rodríguez on the injured list. Today, Robbie Ray joined him and now Hicks will hit the shelf as well. The Giants are 66-66 and clinging to life in the National League Wild Card race. They are 5.5 games back of a spot but would need to leapfrog at least three teams while also holding off the clubs just behind them. Doing so will be more challenging now that some key arms have been subtracted from the staff.
Warren, 28, underwent Tommy John surgery in May of last year while with the Angels and that club designated him for assignment in February. Since injured players aren’t allowed to be placed on outright waivers, he was released and signed a major league deal with the Giants. Since he was still working his way back from surgery, the Giants moved him to the 60-day injured list in February when they signed Jorge Soler.
He was reinstated from the 60-day injured list in July, thus retaking his spot on the 40-man roster, but was optioned to the minors. He has thrown 20 Triple-A innings this year with a 4.95 ERA but better peripherals. He has struck out 26.1% of batters faced, walked 6.8% of them and gotten grounders at a 41.2% rate. A .327 batting average on balls in play, 63% strand rate and 17.6% homer to fly ball rate have helped push some extra runs across the board in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
Dave Roberts strikes again!
Warren has been off the 60-day IL for a couple months. There’s no 40-man roster move needed here.
This is by far the most innings Hicks has ever pitched. I’m not surprised with the inflamation.
Yup.
I remember back in April and May Giants fans were telling me that Hicks was a great starter and how smart the Giants were. I kept telling them he can’t throw strikes it will catch up with him. He’s not a starter folks he’s a reliever.
Yup. This little experiment went about the way I expected. He did perform better in the early going than I thought he would. But whenever I watched him, it was basically the same old Hicks. The splitter was a nice addition to his arsenal.
It was a fair experiment, but someone with a career BB9 of 4.9 doesn’t seem close to a $44M/4 type of player. Much like Stephenson with the Angels, it feels like about one good month of baseball, in an entire career, landed them huge contracts.
That’s a good point about the BB/9, but not sure that’s applicable. He was the closer much of the time for the Cards. He’d come into a game throwing with max effort. As a starter he took stuff off to pace himself. His BB/9 for the Cards was 5.1, while it ‘s been 3.8 for the Giants, and was only 2.7 in his first 15 GS.
I would rather have Hicks at 4/$44 million than Matz at the same.
I’d also like to add his time with the blue jays was good aswell. If they are really trying to squeeze more innings out of him then maybe they should go in between and have him pitch 3-4 innings every 5 days. Guys also throw side sessions so they could have him do those in game instead and get an inning/ 3 batters out of him aswell in between his “starts”
If baseball teams carried 30-man rosters with 15 pitchers you could get away with 3-4 innings every 5 days. When you are signed to millions of dollars to be a starter you need to be going 5-7 innings every start.
Nope. That was Joel P that had that great epiphany. You just copied him.
I don’t know if you know I am Joel P or if you are making a joke.
He’s just not a starter. He can be an excellent reliever but he’s never going to consistently provide the innings a starter needs to provide.
That’s a bold prediction instead of letting things play out for the Giants and him. We’ll see after he comes back from “shoulder inflammation” rest.
I am a Cardinals fan I have seen it play out already. He just can’t throw enough strikes. Perhaps the most common reason why a guy goes to the pen is he can’t throw strikes and that’s Hicks. Sure he provided over 100 innings for the Giants this year but I believe he would have performed better and therefore been more valuable if he was strictly a reliever.
BP, both.
He’s got a league average ERA+ of 100 in 108 IP and back in the pen by design to restrict his innings. Looks like a in-transition starter to me.
His WHIP is 1.4. He just can’t throw enough strike to provide the innings needed to be a starter.
Blackpink, It’s way too early to declare his role as a starter a failure. and define him as a reliever from here on out. And way too early declare victory in the debate from earlier.
It was always the Giants’ plan to move him to the bullpen when guys came off the IL. No one with half a brain expected him to throw 140+ innings when his career high was 77.2, 6 years ago, and 65.2 last year.
Now that he’s been stretched out, throwing 108.1 this season, you will see him start next season, and that number will increase. The Giants sign him for 4 years. Expect him to be a starter next season and beyond.
It was too early to declare the signing and decision to make Hicks a starter a great success which is what the Giants fans did.
It was very successful early on. The reason Giants’ fans were declaring success was that there were numerous posts predicting absolute disaster. There were posts calling the Giants’ FO idiots for even making the attempt to convert Hicks.
I agree that the outcome of the signing and conversion aren’t completely known. But based on this season, Giants’ fans have more to base their beliefs on it’s success, than the doubters do theirs.
It is the mistake by many to declare something a success in early June when a season is 6 months long. At that point we are barely a third of the way there. Your Giants front office being “idiots” can be proven in many other ways besides converting Hicks to a starter. Hicks has not been a success, and the Giants are in no-man’s land. None of this was a success.
“None of this was a success.”
So you’re calling disaster less than a quarter of the way through the contract. Brilliant. After throwing so many additional innings this season it was no surprise his performance would tail off. But his initial performance in the first 3 months was successful. He has a decent platform to go deeper into the season next year.
The original debate was whether trying to convert Hicks to a starter was a good idea or a bad one. Those on the negative side were saying it was stupid to even attempt. Clearly those saying that were just plain wrong, as I guess you are as well.
“It was very successful early on”.
MLB plays 162 games. Congratulations to the Giants for landing Mr April. You are also contradicting yourself like a true Giants fan; his performance tailed off, yet we cannot be negative over the decision to make him a starter? You cannot be serious with this opinion. His success is still based on his ability to be effective and be healthy. Starting 20 games and eating 108 innings is only a positive decision if he’s on a team not intending to compete and win. I guess you’re wrong about the Giants being contenders then.
“I alone predicted this outcome! Everyone should congratulate me on predicting this” you sound like the people saying they predicted the Javy Baez contract and everyone argued against them, when it was the opposite from the start. Just self-reinforcing your own opinion that wasn’t original
Nobody said anything of the sort. Pleasure yourself in privacy, rather than in a comment section.
Multiple Giants fans were celebrating back in April and May acting like turning Hicks into a starter was a success. That definitely happened.
Joel also talked last spring about how many Cards games he’s watched. Then elaborated on pitches Hicks doesn’t even throw. Thought someone was trying to be deceptive mentioning sweeper. Also argued with others as though there are no constraints against LH Infielders.
All that and much more definitely happened.
Didn’t eventually?
Time to end the Hicks starting experiment.
Sk8, Why? he was very good in the starting role until he got to uncharted waters in his IP. He’s been stretched out throwing over 42 innings more than last season. He was good in his first 15 starts. Injuries are always a concern for pitchers, and most teams would be happy getting 20 good ones. That’s probably the goal for 2025. SPs have a lot more value than relievers. There’s absolutely no reason to remove him from a starting role next season.
Farhan firing Kapler and signing Melvin was such a smart move on his part. He would’ve been done after this season if he kept Kapler. Now, he’s attached at the hip with Melvin and the owners aren’t gonna fire Melvin this soon.
I wish they would. I don’t think the performance, or lack of, this season, is Zaidi’s fault. I’d like to see the entire coaching staff fired. They’ve underperformed as a team. Most guys are having career lows or close to it.
They’ve made mistakes on the basepaths. Have trouble scoring guys from 3rd with less than 2 outs. And way too often, Melvin has stuck with a pitcher too long, when it appears he doesn’t have it, and is getting hit.
I never considered this a great team, or even a very good one, but it seemed like a decent one. This team is better on paper than they’ve been on the field.
They’ve lost series’ to the Angels, M’s, Rays and Jays, got swept by the Cards, and could only manage a split with the A’s. The Mets and Padres are the only teams, over .500, that the Giants have a winning record against, and that Padres record is in danger.
Farhan’s only big mistake is not going harder after Harper. All his other misses or bad moves haven’t been catastrophic. When he does eventually get fired, the team won’t be in bad shape for the next guy.
Re: Melvin. Managers really don’t matter much anymore. He’s mediocre, but is there really much difference between him and Kapler?
Farhan is also smart (from a job self-preservation) to never go all-in on any given year. His job is never in jeopardy because the Giants aren’t predicted to be nothing more than a .500 team, with a slight shot at a wild card spot. In a way, he’s still living off of 2021.
I blame Melvin because he’s responsible for the coaching staff. IMO, the hitting coaches have been horrendous. I’ve never seen a team so anxious to swing, so over-aggressive with 2 strikes, swinging for the fences, with a guy on 3rd and less than 2 outs. I think the hitting coaches preach guessing. Otherwise there’s no reason why guys get called out on strikes looking, even when it’s a FB right down the middle.
BTW what FZ offered Harper was reportedly better than what he took from the Phillies. I think Harper didn’t want to play in a park that’s the worse in baseball for LHHs and HRs.
The biggest reason the giants are so mediocre is the their comically bad hitting with RISP.
Hicks – out for season. why bother they will be so far out of it in 15 days
I just knew the Giants would mess him up trying to convert him back into a starter..
Nobody messed anything up, the dude is about 25 innings short of his total from the last two years combined. He’s out of gas, shut him down and get ready for next year.
How did they mess him up exactly?
Sign pitchers late, sign pitchers after TJ, sign relievers to be starters. What do think would happen?
Yeah, the Dodgers never should have signed that Japanese guy coming off TJS, What were the WSox expecting trying to convert Garrett Crochet to a starter? And, you do realize that 7 teams converted relievers into starters this season alone, right?
Lottery in June/Rain come soon!
How’d that work out for the Giants?