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<\/p>\nNow 27, Hicks landed with the Rays this season after a trade-deadline deal with Miami. He made his big-league debut with the Marlins last year as a Rule 5 pick and enjoyed a solid rookie campaign.<\/p>\n
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His numbers jumped this year with 18 homers, 82 RBIs and a .284 average. Hicks has worked well with the Rays\u2019 pitching staff and has frequently been slotted in the heart of the batting order in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a really talented player, but he\u2019s a Grade-A human being,\u201d said Rich Leitch, vice-president of operations for the Toronto Mets. \u201cLike this is the kind of guy you want your daughter to bring home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Game 1 of the Fall Classic between the Rays and Milwaukee Brewers is scheduled for Friday night at American Family Field.<\/p>\n
Leitch remembered Hicks\u2019 debut with the Mets \u2014 who play in a league for top Ontario juniors \u2014 as a 15-year-old who was raw but had talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was an impressive kid,\u201d he said. \u201cBut nobody would look at him and go, \u2018That guy\u2019s (going to be) a major leaguer.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Now listed at five foot nine and 185 pounds, Hicks filled out for his Grade 12 year but didn\u2019t receive any immediate offers from American schools.<\/p>\n
Leitch, who handles college placements for the program, recalled shooting a brief video of Hicks in the batting cage and sending it to Thompson.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight away I was like, \u2018My gosh. A beautiful swing, a left-handed hitter and he looks strong,’\u201d Thompson said from Columbia, Mo. \u201cI told Leitch right away, \u2018Yeah we love this kid.’\u201d <\/p>\n
Hicks, who also played at Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto and considered attending Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., decided to head south. <\/p>\n
He hit .440 in his sophomore season with the Cardinals before transferring to Division I with the Red Wolves. As a junior, he led the Sun Belt Conference with a .464 on-base percentage. <\/p>\n
The Texas Rangers selected him in the ninth round of the MLB Draft that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t know if all the other tools would eventually catch up,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cThe catch tool, the run tool, the arm, defence, all of that. And even (over) the last few weeks when we watched him on TV (with the Rays), we\u2019re so impressed at how much better he\u2019s gotten defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
After college, Hicks progressed through the minor-league levels before getting a shot with the Marlins in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the best hitter we\u2019ve had,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t matter what he did, whether he toe-tapped or leg kicked or stride\/no stride, he could manipulate his timing mechanism and it never failed. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was still always on time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks is the lone Canadian on Tampa Bay\u2019s roster. <\/p>\n
Infielder Tyler Black of Toronto and catcher Bo Naylor of Mississauga, Ont., are on the Brewers\u2019 40-man list but aren\u2019t on the active roster. Doug Melvin of Chatham, Ont., is a senior adviser with the team.<\/p>\n
Hicks led all MLB rookies in 2025 with a 0.77 walks\/strikeout rate (43 BB\/56 K). Among all qualified hitters, he finished with the fifth-lowest out-of-zone swing percentage (17.9), per FanGraphs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe fits the profile of a Rays player,\u201d Leitch said from Whitby, Ont. \u201cHe\u2019s an understated guy who\u2019s just really good at baseball and all his underlying stats and metrics play out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks also played one game for Canada at the World Baseball Classic last winter. Canada manager Ernie Whitt called him a \u201ctremendous team player.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was excited to be a part of it and fit right in with the team,\u201d Whitt said from Detroit. \u201cHe had limited opportunities with us. But I\u2019ll say this, he\u2019s come up the depth chart quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leitch added he feels Hicks is a great role model for young players because he \u201cwilled himself\u201d into his position through hard work and determination. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe always came in with a plan,\u201d he said. \u201cHe always knew exactly what he wanted to do and he was always looking for a way to improve himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2026. <\/p>\n
Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now 27, Hicks landed with the Rays this season after a trade-deadline deal with Miami. He made his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-942019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}