NEWSLETTER
I had no idea Bruce Willis was a ghost until the end of The Sixth Sense. I didn’t know Darth Vader was Luke’s father in the Empire Strikes Back. And I didn’t expect that good of a season from Kyle Hendricks in 2023: 24 starts, 137.0 IP, 3.74 ERA, 4.16 FIP. Silly me.
In early July 2022, Kyle Hendricks hit the injured list after just 16 starts with a shoulder strain. A later MRI revealed a capsular tear in his shoulder and he was shut down for the rest of the season. So at the time, given his age, his waning velocity, and the poor results in both 2021 (4.77 ERA, 4.95 FIP) and 2022 (4.80 ERA, 5.07 FIP), Hendricks looked to be nearing the end of his career.
Except he wasn’t. Not by a long-shot.
This season, in addition to those great results above, the 33-year-old Hendricks posted his best walk rate (4.7%), barrel rate (6.2%), hard-hit rate (31.3%), and groundball rate (46.3%) since 2020. He also generated his lowest average exit velocity (85.2 MPH) since 2017. And he did it all while posting his highest overall fastball velocity (87.7 MPH) since 2016! If that’s not a twist, I don’t know what is.
And I know I wasn’t alone in my surprise. “There was a lot of uncertainty,” Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said via The Athletic. “You go into the offseason and you just don’t know what you’re going to get.” One source even told Patrick Mooney the chances of success with the “program designed to reboot Hendricks career” were down to 1%, if that person had to guess.
But sometimes the 1% hits. And now the Cubs are left with a decision.
The Kyle Hendricks Decision
Because Hendricks finished among the top-10 in Cy Young voting back in 2020, his club option for next season has increased. The Cubs can either pick him back up for one final year at $16.5M or buy him out of his contract for $1.5M – effectively making it a $15M decision.
Alternatively, they could work out a new deal that maybe gets him a bit more money guaranteed overall, but splits it up over two years lowering his impact on the luxury tax. That’s probably the dream scenario right there, a financial win of sorts for both sides and a Cubs legend/leader back for at least one or two more seasons.
Either way, it seems likely that Kyle Hendricks will be back with the Cubs in 2024, as the three most important people in that decision all want and/or expect to see it happen.
Kyle Hendricks Wants to Come Back
Kyle Hendricks spoke to Marquee at the end of the season, saying “…I know I’ve got a lot of years ahead of me. I just love playing baseball, so that’s where my focus is. Just going as long as I can …. Obviously, I love it so much in Chicago, been my whole career playing in front of the best fans in the world, going out on Wrigley Field all the time. So I wouldn’t want to trade that for anything. And they’re well-aware of that. And like I said, if it works for both sides, that’d be great obviously to be back.
Hendricks didn’t need to say any of that for us to suspect it was the case, but now it’s on the record. He’d like to be back.
Tom Ricketts Thinks It’s Gonna Happen
Cubs owner Tom Ricketts’ best quality as an owner is that he has historically stayed far far away from any baseball decisions (usually commentary, too). So hearing him tell the Marquee broadcast that he suspects Hendricks will be back next year caught my ear.
Yes, Ricketts hedged by leaving the decision up to Cubs President Jed Hoyer, but I just don’t think he’d be out there saying that if he didn’t have a good feeling/sense about what was going to come next. Again, Ricketts has plenty of shortcoming as an owner, but he just doesn’t usually get in the baseball ops business, so this definitely stood out.
Jed Hoyer Certainly Sounded Optimistic
Jed Hoyer and the Cubs front office are notoriously cagey about pretty much everything. But if you were to ask me to compare his attempts at benign comments on Cody Bellinger vs Kyle Hendricks, it’s no-contest.
Hoyer clearly wants to keep Hendricks around and is at least moderately optimistic on his ability to make that happen.
That’s just my read on his tone and specifics, but this is just too specific to be insincere: “It’s hard to imagine a better teammate, someone who redefines ‘low maintenance.’ He does whatever the team needs and it’s a joy to have him around. So obviously I’m not going to negotiate anything with you guys right now, but certainly we want to keep him as a Cub for next year and beyond.”
Rotation Impact
Now there’s one wrinkle in all of this, and his name is Marcus Stroman. Halfway through the season, the All-Star and Cy Young candidate seemed like a mortal lock to opt out of his contract at the end of the season, leaving the Cubs with a vacancy in their rotation and $21M of extra spending money. But after multiple injuries and a bout of ineffectiveness, I think he’s probably a mortal lock to pick up that option. And that leaves the Cubs with a pretty full and expensive rotation.
If you assume Justin Steele ($4.1M), Marcus Stroman ($21M), and Jameson Taillon ($18M) are all more-or-less locks for the rotation, then the addition of Hendricks ($16.5M) means the Cubs have four spots and $60M locked-ish into their rotation.
And that doesn’t include Jordan Wicks, who made a clear and positive impression at the end of the season … or Javier Assad (MLB min.), Hayden Wesneski (MLB min.), or Drew Smyly ($8.5M). (Or Cade Horton.)
It’s easy enough to accommodate the latter half of that list in the bullpen as true relievers and/or swing starters, with some optioning to Iowa involved, but it is a pretty full list. And, most importantly, it doesn’t account for the very real possibility — and even greater NECESSITY — to add a true impact free agent to the front of this rotation.
Putting that another way: The Cubs absolutely need to add an impact starter this winter, there are a ton of them available in free agency, and they’ve already been connected to one of the best and probably most expensive.
So like it or not, that likely Stroman option impacts the Hendricks decision significantly, on both a financial and roster-space level.
My advice to the Cubs? Don’t worry about it. You always, always, always need pitching. Get Hendricks. Get one of those big free agents. And pray to the baseball gods that even THAT is enough to get you where you need to be by the end of the season. And don’t talk to me about money. Just spend big.
So get cracking on a two-year deal that serves as a financial win-win …
