NAPA — The temperature at Napa Yard hovered in the low 40s for much of Saturday’s FanFest. Every breath, every word produced clouds of vapor. But in several weeks’ time, pitchers Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison will venture down to Scottsdale, Arizona, where they’ll be greeted by true baseball weather.
And heightened expectations, too.
“Anytime this comes around, we get the itch,” Harrison told this news organization. “Baseball season is right around the corner, so we’re excited to be out here. Can’t wait for the offseason to be over.”
With the Giants failing to lure right-handers Corbin Burnes and Roki Sasaki to San Francisco, they’ll be leaning heavily on Harrison and Hicks to take steps forward and provide more — both quality and quantity — than they did last season.
Harrison, 23, and Hicks, 28, are at different points in their careers, but last year, they both recorded career-highs in innings, regardless of level. Hicks, who threw 109 2/3 innings, transitioned from reliever to starter after signing in free agency; Harrison, who totaled 124 1/3 frames, cracked an Opening Day roster for the first time in his career.
That volume wasn’t without turbulence. Hicks started hot (1.59 ERA in March/April), faded as he accumulated innings (5.40 ERA from May-July) and ended the season in the bullpen. Harrison had spurts where he looked like a rotation mainstay but dealt with a shoulder injury towards the end of the season as he, too, pitched more than he ever had, ending the year with a 4.56 ERA.
Despite the mixed results, Harrison and Hicks acknowledged that taking on that workload was important because it gave them a foundation to build upon. Prior to 2024, neither had experienced the grind of a full major-league season as starters — mentally or physically. Entering this offseason, they had a clear blueprint of what they needed to address.
Hicks, who hopes to sit in the high 90s with his fastball, has spent a good chunk of the offseason working out at Oracle Park with left-handed reliever Erik Miller, putting an emphasis on strengthening his legs and improvising his conditioning through more biking and running. Prior to Willy Adames’ introductory press conference, Hicks and Miller could be seen throwing on the field. Harrison, too, has put an emphasis on strength training in conjunction with mobility work, describing how he underwent a “total analysis” of his body to identify the areas where he was deficient.
“My goal is to go out there and make 30-plus starts and be there from start to finish and hopefully make a really good playoff push,” Hicks told this news organization. “That’s my goal, and I hope that’s everybody else’s goal: to be a winning ballclub and make that deep playoff run.”
Harrison and Hicks enjoyed the luxury of learning from some of baseball’s best pitchers in their first full season as starters. In 2024, Harrison and Hicks shared a rotation with Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Blake Snell, the latter two having won Cy Young Awards while Webb finished second to Snell in 2023. Snell traded in the orange and black for the Dodger blue this fall, but now Harrison and Hicks will have the chance to soak up wisdom from a future Hall of Famer in Justin Verlander.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Harrison said of Verlander, who signed a one-year, $15 million deal. “It’s crazy to think about because of how long he’s been doing it. That’s everyone’s goal. That’s what I want to do one day. That’s what I’m sure every pitcher here wants to do one day — be like him, still be pitching at that age. He’s a Hall of Famer, and I’m going to be all ears and listening.”
“Anybody that can play even past 10 is someone that I’m willing to learn from,” Hicks said. “I’m willing to learn from anybody, but JV definitely knows what he’s doing up there on the bump. I’m excited to pick his brain.”
Harrison and Hicks are the likeliest candidates to land the latter two spots in San Francisco’s rotation behind Webb, Ray and Verlander, but president of baseball operations Buster Posey emphasized earlier this week that he expects competition during spring training. When Posey told Hicks earlier this offseason about bringing on another starter, Hicks told Posey that he welcomed the competition. During a Q&A session on Saturday, Hicks shared that Posey gave him.
“I always found it created a great atmosphere in spring training when there was competition for any spot on the field,” Posey said.
“We have a lot of really good young arms, and I think the competition is going to be good for us,” said third baseman Matt Chapman to this news organization. “It’s going to make us stronger.”
