Welcome to the first edition of the Starting Pitcher News column. Each week, I’ll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch.
The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher’s outlook. Only now, I won’t just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to see if the recent changes we’re seeing are worth buying into or just mirages.
Each week, I’ll try and cover at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you’ll find it useful, so let’s get started.
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All the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also has a great chart feature, which allows you to see how the whole arsenal plays together.
MLB: Spring Training-Texas Rangers at Los Angeles Dodgers
2025 Fantasy Baseball Top 300 overall: Bobby Witt Jr. and Shohei Ohtani lead preseason rankings
Spencer Strider, Cristopher Sánchez, and Christian Yelich are on the rise while Thairo Estrada’s injury takes him off the board.
Jordan Hicks – San Francisco Giants (Velocity increase)
I will admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of the idea of Jordan Hicks as a starter. I understand the allure of his velocity and the fact that his stuff played up in the bullpen, but I just never believed it would transition into the starting rotation. To a certain extent, it didn’t last year. Hicks did post a solid 4.10 ERA, but it came with a 1.45 WHIP and only 109.2 innings of work. I was fully out heading into this season.
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While Hicks’ spring training hasn’t been great, something popped out in his last start that we should take note of.
Jordan Hicks CHart
That’s Hicks averaging 97.4 mph on his sinker and four-seam fastball, up almost three miles per hour from last year. He also did that into the fifth inning, so it wasn’t just a spike in the game’s early innings. The results were obviously there with seven called strikes, four whiffs, and a 32.4% CSW on the sinker. That velocity gain…