Jordan HicksThearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
Pittsburgh Pirates: RHP Colin Holderman
Telling Stat: From a .256 AVG to a .141 AVG
This sort of feels like Oneil Cruz erasure, but the book on him hasn’t really changed. He’s hitting the ball at an elite average of 95.1 mph, but his 32.6 strikeout percentage confirms preventing him from hitting the ball is still doable.
Holderman, meanwhile, is about as unhittable as anyone on a pitch-to-pitch basis. His sweeper now accounts for 45.5 percent of his pitches, and it’s been deadly in holding batters to an .095 average.
San Diego Padres: LF Jurickson Profar
Telling Stat: From a .689 OPS to a .905 OPS
I totally spaced on Profar as the Padres’ biggest surprise of 2024 in an earlier piece, so this is me setting the record straight. He may be 31, but this is really the first time he’s lived up to having been baseball’s No. 1 prospect in the early 2010s.
He’s always had a knack for contact, but now his walk rate, exit velocity and hard-hit rate are all at career-best levels. The switch-hitter has never been better from the right side, where he’s hitting .341.
San Francisco Giants: RHP Jordan Hicks
Telling Stat: From 0 GS, 3.29 ERA to 15 GS, 2.82 ERA
Here we have another metamorphosis, and arguably the most impressive of the bunch. The Giants apparently did, but who else could have expected that a hard-throwing yet wild reliever could be converted into such a reliable starter?
Hicks has been precisely that, and the reasons for it go beyond his career-low 8.8 walk percentage. His increased splitter usage is also paying off. Even when it’s 40.9 whiff rate isn’t getting higher, it’s another source of ground balls to go with his sinker.
