Let’s Talk About Kyle Hendricks and the Bullpen (And Other Cubs Bullets)

Apr 17, 2024

Extra innings giveth, extra innings taketh away.

Look on the bright side. After another historic loss late last night in Arizona (already their second on the season … somehow), the Cubs’ West Coast trip is nearly over. Yesterday was their last late-night game until the end of June. And after today, they’ll head back home to Chicago to face the Marlins for four straight games before an off-day. If that doesn’t settle them down, I don’t know what will.

And the Cubs should get Jameson Taillon back soon, which should help (at least) the rotation. In an ideal world, Taillon’s return would allow Ben Brown or Javier Assad to move into the bullpen. But with Justin Steele still out and Kyle Hendricks struggling BADLY, I just don’t know if the Cubs can afford to move either of them out.

And while we’ve seen slow starts from Kyle Hendricks before, this is far – FAR – worse than ever before. He’s only four starts into the season and has already allowed a league-leading 24(!) earned runs. Patrick Corbin (20 ER) is the only other pitcher with at least 20 earned runs, and after that, the next closest is Joe Musgrove and Jesus Luzardo at 17.

Kyle Hendricks ERA through his first four starts of the season by year:

'15: 5.23 ERA
'16: 3.91 ERA
'17: 4.50 ERA
'18: 4.09 ERA
'19: 3.54 ERA
'20: 3.08 ERA
'21: 5.68 ERA
'22: 3.98 ERA
'23: 2.70 ERA
'24: 12.70 ERA
— Michael Cerami (@Michael_Cerami) April 17, 2024

Normally, I’d have a hard time reconciling those results with his top-10 (in a good way) average exit velocity velocity, top-20 hard%, 46.4 GB%, and perfectly acceptable 7.2% barrel rate. But when that also comes with one of the highest line-drive rates, the third lowest whiff rate, and dozens of balls in play, you’re gonna get got. And Hendricks has gotten got. A lot. When you’re that type of pitcher, your margin for error is razor thin and you’re more susceptible to radon variance swinging the numbers.

That’s not about luck. That’s about the type of pitcher he is right now and the risk it carries: “The big thing is when he makes a mistake right now, he’s paying for it,” said pitching coach Tommy Hottovy via 670 The Score. I think he gave up five hits last night and two of them were homers. And one of them was a middle-in fastball to (Lourdes) Gurriel, another one was an 0-2 fastball to Joc (Pederson) that Kyle just didn’t execute. That’s just not something we’re used to seeing of Kyle. When he’s ahead, he’s usually getting guys out at a high clip. And then the other part of yesterday was going out for the fifth, the two walks that kind of put us in a tough spot there, that’s just uncharacteristic of Kyle.”

But like I said the last time his start went off the rails, the Cubs are in a frustrating spot. Kyle Hendricks is not the sort of pitcher that makes sense for a transition into the bullpen, where as Ben Brown could probably be an elite reliever (and isn’t going to throw 140+ innings this year anyway) and we know Javier Assad has had a lot of success in relief, too. But who in their right mind would bump either of them right now. It’s just not justifiable. Can’t happen.

And yet, from the sound of this Tommy Hottovy quote, it’s going to happen: “You get to a point where the results just need to happen. I know Kyle knows that and he feels that. But he’s not going to change his approach. He’s going to continue to work and be the steady guy that he is and that’s what you appreciate with guys that do that. We know he’s going to come out of it.”

You can always go the phantom IL route with Hendricks, but that just leaves the Cubs down another arm, and that was already the problem last night. Craig Counsell had to see if he could get one more inning out of Hendricks, because this bullpen is absolutely gassed. They’ve thrown 73.2 innings already this season, compared to the rotation, who’s thrown … 78.0 IP. That is not how it’s supposed to work. There’s some important context to include there (as has been pointed out to me), like three extra-inning games, the Shota Imanaga rain-shortened start, and the game Luke Little was used as an opener. But while that may excuse the rotation a little, it doesn’t change the bottom-line impact all those innings are having on the bullpen.

And heading into extras last night, the writing was on the wall.

As Cubs head to extra innings for 2nd straight night vs Dbacks their bullpen options are bleak:

Neris unavailable after used in three straight
Thompson 2 IP last night
Little, Palencia, Leiter, Almonte, Alzolay already used tonight
It leaves Smyly who threw 26 pitches last night— Meghan Montemurro (@M_Montemurro) April 17, 2024

The Cubs will get Jameson Taillon back tomorrow, but I do wonder if they’ll make a roster move for a fresh arm today. On the 40-man roster, their options are Michael Arias, Jose Cuas, and Hayden Wesneski (and maybe they option Luke Little or Daniel Palencia to get it done). But they actually have more flexibility than that, because they can, at any point, shift Julian Merryweather to the 60-day IL, opening up a spot on the 40-man roster for any pitcher in the organization. Carl Edwards Jr., for example, hasn’t pitched since April 14. Maybe he’ll get a shot (though he’s not optionable, so once he’s up, the Cubs risk losing him if they try to send him back down). I guess we’ll see. Stay tuned on this, because it’s an earlier game today (2:40pm CT).

Okay, moving on for now to something nicer. HOW ABOUT NICO HOERNER. The small sample size of the early season has swung back in the other direction. And after logging seven hits in his last three games (plus a walk), Hoerner is how slashing .264/.403/.340 (117 wRC+). And that makes him the third most productive hitter on the Cubs right now. Second most productive among active players (excluding Seiya Suzuki).

But he wasn’t the only one with a good game yesterday. Ian Happ also had three hits, including a double and a homer, dragging his slash line back into the black: .261/.363/.391 (113 wRC+). And Miguel Amaya is looking pretty good too: .281/.314/.469 (110 wRC+).

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Let’s Talk About Kyle Hendricks and the Bullpen (And Other Cubs Bullets)

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