At this year’s SoxFest, Chicago White Sox general manager Rick Hahn summed up the development path for catchers.
“Catchers develop weird, you know, you see that throughout baseball,” he said. “Some years [as a group] they are outstanding offensively and the defense lacks, and other years it’s the reverse of that …”
Keeping Hahn’s thought in mind, Kannapolis Intimidators catcher Michael Hickman is primed for a breakout in 2019.
Hickman was on the White Sox radar in 2015 as a high school player in Katy, Texas. His perfectgame.org player page displays a grade of 10 on their scale, which suggests “potential very high draft pick and/or elite level college prospect.