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Liam Hicks

2026
Rays· C · bats L · throws R· 465 PA
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Grade

How good he's been, and at what
C+better than 59% of hitters at creating bases

His season is in line with his established level.

Complete Hitter

Above average everywhere, with the bat-to-ball skill to match the thump.

A disciplined contact hitter

Liam Hicks rarely strikes out — less often than 98% of qualified hitters. The contact is soft, though — only 8% of qualified hitters hit the ball with less authority.

465 plate appearances · data through 2026-08-22.

How to read this chart
Each spoke is a skill estimate adjusted for sample size — not raw season stats — so farther out = better. Spokes are the metric itself; ↓ marks a rate where a LOWER number is better. Percentiles vs. 499 qualified hitters — 50+ plate appearances.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — pick one to see him side by side with Liam Hicks.

Masataka YoshidaRed SoxLuis CampusanoPadresColt KeithTigersDaulton VarshoAstros

Hitter type

What kind of hitter he is, next to the league

Hitter type

Elite plate discipline with weak contact.

How to read this chart
Two skills separate hitting styles: not giving away at-bats (walk rate minus strikeout rate) and squaring the ball up when he does put it in play (hard-hit rate). Every dot is a qualified hitter this season; dot size tracks plate appearances. Click any dot to open that hitter's page.
 Liam HicksLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(higher = better).448.50859th
Walk rate(higher = better)11%8%77th
Strikeout rate(lower = better)9%23%98th

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA)

Better vs RHP than vs LHP by 0.100 EB/PA (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.081 to +0.120

vs LHP101 PA0.372

vs LHP: shrunk estimate 0.372 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.349 to 0.394, based on 101 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.297 EB/PA. League median vs LHP: 0.425 EB/PA.

Raw vs LHP rate (0.297) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

vs RHP365 PA0.472

vs RHP: shrunk estimate 0.472 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.456 to 0.490, based on 365 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.523 EB/PA. League median vs RHP: 0.436 EB/PA.

Raw vs RHP rate (0.523) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

0.3330.3760.4190.4630.506
← worsebetter →
Above league medianBelow50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

A wider split than the typical lefty bat's (median 0.080). Against lefties he sits below the league median — a genuine platoon vulnerability.

He sits in the league's bottom quarter vs lefties and the league's middle half vs righties.

How to read this chart
  • Tap or hover any mark for its number, or tab to a row for all of them.
  • His raw rate is the unshrunk number against that hand — small samples make it noisy, which is why the model pulls his estimate toward a more trustworthy value.
  • “Middle half of the league” is the 25th–75th percentile of all hitters against that hand.
  • Shrunk splits beat raw splits decisively at low PA counts and converge with them as playing time builds — individual platoon gaps need roughly 1,000+ PA vs a hand before the raw number alone can be trusted.

How he hits

What happens when he puts a ball in play

He hits the ball to the pull side most often, and that's where his hardest contact goes.

Best batted balls

Where every ball Liam Hicks put in play landed this season.
hit · out
EBlowhigh
vs Anthony NunezHome run
EV 108 mph · LA 29° · EB 3.9
05/05 vs Orioles
vs Tyler GlasnowHome run
EV 104 mph · LA 34° · EB 3.9
04/29 vs Dodgers
vs Ronel BlancoHome run
EV 102 mph · LA 30° · EB 3.9
07/20 vs Astros
vs Michael LorenzenHome run
EV 100 mph · LA 29° · EB 3.7
03/28 vs Rockies
vs Jack PerkinsHome run
EV 100 mph · LA 28° · EB 3.6
08/12 vs Athletics

Luck check

Robbed once — a crushed ball the simulator scores as a near-certain hit that died in a glove.

vs Jordan LeasureOutRobbed
EV 101 mph · LA 29° · EB 2.1
04/01 vs White Sox

7 lucky hits — balls with a hit probability under 20% that found grass.

vs José SuarezSingleLucky
EV 87 mph · LA -15° · EB 0.1 · xBA .070
04/13 vs Braves
How to read this chart
Dot color is estimated bases (EB) — what the contact was worth, regardless of what the defense did with it. So a dark hollow ring in the outfield is a crushed ball that got caught. Tap or hover a dot or a row to link the two, and use the ▶ links to watch a play on Baseball Savant.

Performance by pitch type

2026 · 1,690 pitches

Bases he adds per 100 pitches of each type, against the league.

← below leagueabove league →
Four-Seam Fastball (475 pitches)
+0.1
Lg median −0.4Lg best +12.9
Sinker (289 pitches)
−2.8
Lg median −1.3Lg best +10.4
Changeup (198 pitches)
+2.3
Lg median −0.3Lg best +17.9
Slider (176 pitches)
+0.9
Lg median −0.5Lg best +13.2
Curveball (156 pitches)
+1.4
Lg median +0.5Lg best +14.6
Cutter (141 pitches)
+2.5
Lg median −0.3Lg best +16.7
Sweeper (130 pitches)
−0.4
Lg median −0.3Lg best +21.9
Splitter (90 pitches)
+3.4
Lg median −0.7Lg best +12.6
Other (35 pitches)

+4.3 bases per 100 · no single-type league comparison

Above league medianBelowMiddle half of the leagueLg medianLg best
How to read this chart
Bases added per 100 pitches of each type — the same scale as the pitcher pages’ “saved/cost per 100”, from the hitter’s side. Every pitch counts: taking a ball adds value, whiffing loses it, and the pitch that ends the plate appearance scores its outcome against the count’s expectation. Values are bases vs the league count-average: +3.5 means his results against that pitch have been worth about 3.5 extra bases per 100 seen. Types with fewer than 50 pitches seen pool into “Other”.

Earned vs. actual

Liam Hicks has been credited about 17 more bases than his contact earned — his results have run fortunate so far.

Earned off his own contact163
Actually credited to him179

over 363 balls in play · walks and strikeouts excluded on both sides

How to read this chart
Every ball he puts in play is worth the bases its exit velocity and direction usually earn. Comparing those earned bases with the bases he was actually credited shows whether his results have been lucky, unlucky, or fair.

Swing

How fast he swings, and what he changes with two strikes. League tracking starts in 2024.

Swing at a glance

2026 · data through 2026-08-22
Bat speed · 650 swings
67.6 mph
Lg median 71.1 mph
Slowest: S. Kwan (61.9 mph)Fastest: J. Caminero (78.7 mph)
Lg median

Swings slower than most hitters. His swing is shorter than most hitters', with a flatter attack angle than most. Cuts his swing down about as much as most hitters with two strikes. His bat travels on a fairly typical path.

Attack angle
6.6°
Lg median 9.4°
Swing length
6.8 ft
Lg median 7.3 ft
Swing path tilt
31.7°
Lg median 32.4°
Middle half of the league
How to read this chart
  • Competitive swings: bunts and checked-type swings under 50 mph are excluded, so these numbers sit a touch below the bat speeds Savant publishes, which use a different cut.
  • League tracking starts in 2024, and early 2024 has small gaps — about 93% of swings that season have a reading.
  • Swing length — how far the sweet spot of the bat travels during the swing.
  • Attack angle — the bat’s upward or downward tilt through the zone.
  • Swing path tilt — how steep the bat’s path is.
  • None of these is better or worse on its own — swing style trades power against contact (the fastest and slowest swings in the league both belong to stars).

Timing

Early or late, over or under — how his swing meets the pitch. Tracking starts mid-2023.

Timing at a glance

2026 · data through 2026-08-22
Perfect contact · 672 swings
32.1%
Lg median 22.6%Lg best 39.4%
On-time swings
75.0%
Lg median 64.5%Lg best 79.1%
Miss distance on whiffs
2.6 in
Lg median 3.0 inLg best 1.0 in

Squares the ball up more often than most hitters. His misses split about evenly between early and late. When he misses vertically, it's more often under the ball than over it. More of his mishits come from getting tied up inside than from reaching at pitches away from him.

Middle half of the league
How to read this chart
  • Perfect contact — a swing that is centered (barrel within 4 inches of the ball horizontally), on time (within 7 milliseconds of ideal timing), and lined up (within 2 inches vertically), all at once. A swing missing any of the three counts as flawed.
  • Miss distance — on swings and misses only: how far the barrel half of the bat passed from the ball, in inches.
  • Timing numbers are Savant’s season-to-date figures. Switch hitters have both sides combined — no side-by-side timing split exists.
  • League comparisons cover hitters with 100+ tracked swings this season. Tracking starts in July 2023.

How he sets up

Where he stands in the box and how his feet are set, next to the league-average setup.

How he sets up

An open stance — 36° open; the average hitter is 13° open.

Top-down batting stance vs league averagePitcher ↑

Month by month this season, from his setup about a second before each pitch.

Middle half of the leagueLg median
His feetLg avg
How to read this chart
  • Overhead view of the batter’s box. The dots are his feet, reconstructed from Statcast’s stance measurements — hip position, foot separation, and stance angle — about one second before the pitch. It’s an approximation of his setup, not his stride or swing.
  • Open means his front foot is pulled off the line to the plate; closed means it steps toward it. The average hitter sets up slightly open.
  • The change line above only appears for a sustained month-over-month move that clears normal Statcast noise by a wide margin.
  • The chart is his month-by-month average for whichever measure you pick, this season only. A month needs 25 tracked swings to appear, so an injured or platooned month can be missing. The shaded band and dashed line are where the middle half of hitters, and the median hitter, sat over their whole season.
  • On the angle chart, below zero is an open stance and above zero is a closed one — hover a point (or drag on a phone) and it says which in words.
  • Data through 2026-08-22.

Best games

His biggest games this year

Best games

His best games this season by bases above replacement.

Multi-season trends · Liam Hicks

HR% up, K% down, Barrel% up, Pull% up vs last season

Actual rates — what happened on the field, season by season.