D. J. Hicks
photo by Tim Evearitt
The Twins Daily is a website with which Minnesota Twins fans are quite familiar.
Dalton Hicks – who is also just fine if you prefer to call him DJ – made the best of his April. He is a big part of this Chattanooga Lookouts roster, and he is a name the Twins fans should really get to know.
For the month of April, Hicks was (22-66) .333/.436/.576 with five doubles, one triple, three home runs and 11 RBIs.
Listed at 6-5 and 250 pounds, Hicks is a powerful presence in the middle of the Chattanooga lineup.
For one reason or another, he is an under-rated “prospect,” but he has been one of the more productive hitters in the Twins organization since the Twins used their 17th round pick in 2012 on the slugger out of the University of Central Florida.
He drove in 25 runs in 31 games for Elizabethton that first year. His walk-off grand slam won the Appalachian League title for the E-Twins. In 2013, he spent two-thirds of the season in Cedar Rapids and the final third in Ft. Myers. His 110 RBIs was one more than Kernels teammate Adam Brett Walker. He spent all of the 2014 season with the Ft. Myers Miracle and was a key component in the Miracle’s Florida State League championship.
Right now, he is the three-hitter in that power- and potential-packed Lookouts lineup. In April, he was the organization’s top hitter. However he credits some of his hot start to his teammates.
Hicks said, “It’s always important to get off to a hot start. Obviously easier said than done. But, when you play with the guys I play with, it’s pretty easy to be patient and look for what I want to hit knowing the guy behind me will get the job done if I don’t.”
Though he hit .414 with a 1.071 OPS in the season’s first eight games to jump-start his season, he remained consistent throughout the whole month. Over the final ten games of the month, he hit .270 and still had a .968 OPS thanks to finding his power stroke.
For the second straight season, his manager is former Twins infielder Doug Mientkiewicz. When you have success, a lot of it is due to what work and preparation was done in the offseason. The 25-year-old credits his offseason work. “Working with Slice (Miracle hitting coach and long-time big leaguer Jim Dwyer) and Dougie from last year, I knew what I needed to ‘fix’ in order to have better success.”
This Chattanooga team is pretty special. Many of the players were on last year’s Ft. Myers Miracle championship team and the Elizabethton championship team. They won a lot of games in Cedar Rapids in 2013 as well.
They may be off to a slower start early this season, but Hicks said the atmosphere in the Lookouts clubhouse is the same.
“It’s the same as it has always been. This is a special group. We know that. We are a team that likes to have fun. Guys are always looking out for each other on and off the field.”
As for the remainder of the season, Hicks won’t set many goals.
“I’m not a guy with big goals. The best advice I think I have ever received is to always ‘stay the same’ and look at making today the best today. When we as baseball players can be the same, day in and day out, success will find its way our way. At the end of the year, goals will take care of themselves."