"I'm not going to put his season in a discarded nutshell, because that's what his season was itself. You should not care about Jordan Hicks' results in 2025. Someone reading this, or someone reading the headline and nothing else, is going to see that he finished the season with a 6.95 ERA and write him off entirely. I'm here to tell you not to do that. You're going to do that anyway, but don't. Please."
"Hicks' sinker averaged 97.5 mph. It also came with about 17 inches of horizontal run. The list of pitchers who can throw a sinker with that much movement that hard is a very short one. The pitch returned a 68% ground ball rate, but hitters still hit .297 against it, thanks to a .341 batting average on balls in play. That screams positive regression in the future."
"The results. Most of the results were bad. I am not trying to convince you that Jordan Hicks was good. He was objectively bad. The Red Sox acquired Hicks because of his stuff. He was injured when he was acquired and tried to make adjustments on the fly. He raised his arm angle, tweaked some pitch shapes, and tried to make other adjustments on the fly. It didn't work. Bear with me; I'm getting to the good stuff, I swear."
Jordan Hicks recorded a difficult 2025 season with a 6.95 ERA but showed elite pitch characteristics that suggest future improvement. His sinker averaged 97.5 mph with roughly 17 inches of horizontal run and generated a 68% ground-ball rate, yet opponents hit .297 against it due to a .341 batting average on balls in play, implying likely positive regression. Hicks arrived injured to the Red Sox and attempted on-the-fly mechanical changes, including raising his arm angle and tweaking pitch shapes, which failed to immediately restore results. Comparisons to Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman imply possible rebound if command and role stabilize.
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