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Why Chicago Cubs need to keep ‘terrible’ Kyle Hendricks around this season
![Gordon Wittenmyer](https://thekapman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/gordon-wittenmyer.jpg)
Reds beat writer for Cincinnati Enquirer, co-host Cubs #ReKap podcast; formerly with Chicago Sun-Times. @GDubMLB
When Kyle Hendricks headed across the outfield grass from the bullpen to the Wrigley Field mound in Thursday’s eighth inning, it looked so wrong.
No matter how right it might be.
Among the most consequential pitchers in franchise history, Hendricks is among an elite group that can be counted on one hand, starting with Fergie Jenkins.
But among the worst-performing pitchers for the second-place Cubs this year, you only need one finger to get to Hendricks, and a sizable group of fans seem to have picked out the finger that applies.
But you don’t have to take anybody else’s word for Hendricks’ career-worst start.
“Terrible” was the word he used to describe his performance when manager Craig Counsell sent him from the rotation to the bullpen after a stint on the “injured” list didn’t solve his early season woes.
How bad has Hendricks pitched this season? When he got knocked around by the Braves Thursday and allowed two runs in two innings, his ERA actually went down, to 10.47.
How bad?
Put it this way: If the Cubs were owned by the governor of South Dakota instead of the governor of Nebraska (and sundry other Rickettses), it might not have ended much better for Hendricks than it did for a dog named Cricket.
But this is Kyle Hendricks. The Professor. Mr. Game 7 starter. The guy who stared down Clayton Kershaw when Kershaw was still the best pitcher on the planet and avenged a 1-0 loss by pitching 7 1/3 scoreless innings to send the Cubs to the most celebrated World Series in major league history.
The last man standing from that 2016 championship.
“It’s huge, just who he is as a person, his experience in this game, his success,” Ian Happ said. “He’s seen it all. He’s super accomplished. He’s been consistent and consistent with his work. He’s a guy that everybody respects and looks up to, and I’m really lucky to have been able to play with him for now my eighth year. That’s pretty awesome.”
Happ, the second-most-tenured Cub, said that during a conversation about Hendricks’ stature and importance to this next-gen competitive team Jed Hoyer has put together to replicate what he and Theo Epstein’s core accomplished nearly a decade ago.
Other guys on this team have won championships.
“He did it here,” Happ said. “He’s seen everything here since 2014. He’s seen that run — ’15, ’16, ’17. He’s seen everything in this clubhouse, so his experience is super valuable to the whole group but definitely to the pitching staff, what he’s been able to do in his career.”
So now what?
What do you do with a guy that respected and valuable in the room, a guy who isn’t getting it done on the field for a team built and paid and expected to win now?
It’s hard to imagine at 34 that Hendricks has suddenly lost the ability to pitch. For the first seven years of his career, his 3.12 ERA was matched by only six pitchers — five Cy Young winners (Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Corey Kluber, Jacob deGrom, Zack Greinke) and a seven-time All-Star (Chris Sale).
But it’s hard to argue with the results so far.
Especially after a long-term shoulder injury that cost him much of 2022 and ’23. Especially with the urgency attached to this season after the lightning-strike hiring of Counsell for $40 million in November and seven years it’s been since these guys won a playoff game.
What’s left to do with Hendricks? Anybody?
Crickets
No, not that.
“Our pitching is precarious enough right now that we can’t — we are going day by day with a lot of this right now,” Counsell said.
That’s what makes the Cubs’ course with Hendricks the right one.
Right now at least.
Since his first start of the season, Hendricks’ numbers the first time through the order have been competitive, and then not so much the second time through. And they fall off a cliff the third time through.
It’s possible a multi-inning, middle relief role could be a fit for the moment, especially for a crappy bullpen desperate for some passable performances from more than a couple guys between now and the trade deadline.
And what if he finds a way to thrive in the role?
Counsell and Hoyer, were quick to suggest nobody should write off Hendricks’ career yet, even if they didn’t always sound especially and even if their actions took them right up to the line of doing that.
If Hendricks can salvage any semblance of a productive season, he could wind up being the key to the pitching staff that Happ suggested on the eve of the season.
If not?
Well, maybe the trade deadline will help. Along with the mediocre division. And maybe Shota Imanaga won’t regress too much the second and third time he starts seeing teams — and maybe even become the first rookie to win a Cy Young in over 40 years.
For now, Hendricks is under contract through this year. If he doesn’t find a way to pitch well, he’s not likely to find much free agent value even if he wants to keep pitching.
And that brings it back again to the way the Cubs are handling this. Hendricks isn’t ready to talk about his future beyond playing.
But nobody in the organization knows more about pitching than he does. Remember, this is the guy who did his own breakdowns and pitching plans for his minor-league starts down to the kind of details that rivaled former coach Mike Borzello’s then-state-of-the-art plans a decade ago when Hendricks broke in.
Few know as much about winning first-hand.
And the Dartmouth business grad knows a few things about the baseball economics of evaluation.
Maybe Hendricks will get back in the rotation. Counsell said that’s the goal. Maybe he’ll even pitch a few more years before he starts thinking about what comes next.
Regardless, “at this point nothing he could ever do here forward should have any impact on his time here,” Hoyer said. “He’s been an amazing member of the pitching staff and an amazing part of the organization.”
But this is a guy that makes sense to give every opportunity to succeed again right now, for the sake of what it might mean for the team on the field if it happens — and what it means in the clubhouse either way.
And then to keep him in-house after that as a big part of the organization’s pitching structure.
Because no matter what happens on the mound the rest of this season, as they say in South Dakota, that’s a dog that’ll hunt.