The Cubs have exercised their $16.5MM club option on the services of veteran right-hander Kyle Hendricks, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN. Hendricks, the club’s longest-tenured player, is now set to return in 2024 for his 11th season with the major league team and his 13th season as a member of the Cubs organization as a whole. Rogers also reports that the club has picked up their $6MM club option on veteran catcher Yan Gomes, who will return for his third season in Chicago.
Chicago’s decision to retain Hendricks is hardly a surprise, given comments earlier this fall from both president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and club chairman Tom Ricketts that indicated Hendricks would return to the Cubs in 2024. The decision was likely made even simpler by veteran right-hander Marcus Stroman’s decision to opt out of the final year of his contract and return to the open market. By keeping Hendricks in the fold, the Cubs have a proven veteran starter to pair with Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon in the club’s rotation next season with youngsters like Jordan Wicks, Javier Assad, Hayden Wesneski, and perhaps even top pitching prospect Cade Horton all also in the mix for starts next season.
Of course, the most important factor in Hendricks’s option being picked up was the veteran righty’s strong bounceback campaign in 2023. The soft-tossing righty was among the most effective starters in all of baseball for the first seven seasons of his career with a sterling 3.12 ERA and 3.53 FIP across 175 games. Among the 68 pitchers who threw at least 700 total innings between 2014 and 2020, Hendricks’s ERA ranks 7th. Unfortunately, Hendricks’s performance took a turn for the worse over the next two seasons; he posted a 4.78 ERA and 4.87 FIP across 48 starts those two seasons before being shut down last summer due to a shoulder capsule injury.
Rehabbing from that shoulder injury left Hendricks unavailable to open the 2023 campaign, but he looked rejuvenated upon his return in late May. In 24 starts for the Cubs this season, Hendricks was able to provide a steady, veteran presence in the middle of the club’s rotation with a 3.74 ERA and 3.81 FIP in 137 innings of work. Though Hendricks struck out just 16.1% of batters faced- a low mark even by his soft-tossing standards- he made up for it by walking a microscopic 4.7% of batters faced while generating groundballs at a 46.3% clip. Altogether, Hendricks’s performance and the rising prices of pitching on the free agent market in recent years seems to have made picking up the 2024 option on his services a fairly easy decision for the Cubs.
As for Gomes, the 36-year-old veteran rebounded in a big way from a down year offensively in 2022. After slashing just .235/.260/.365 in 293 trips to the plate while serving as the club’s primary backup to Willson Contreras behind the plate last year, Gomes stepped into the role of Chicago’s primary catcher after Contreras departed for the Cardinals in free agency. Gomes took to the role quite well, slashing a respectable .267/.315/.408 in 419 trips to the plate, good for a 95 wRC+ that ranked 26th among the 69 catchers who had at least 100 trips to the plate in the majors this year.
In addition to his solid bat for the position, Gomes has generally been well-regarded as a catcher defensively throughout his career. Though his framing marks slipped somewhat in 2023 from where they had been in previous years, Gomes ranked in the 81st percentile for Blocks Above Average behind the plate and the 66th percentile for CS Above Average in 2023. Given his solid performance both at and behind the plate in 2023, it’s hardly a surprise that the Cubs would retain Gomes for a third season behind the plate, though it’s possible he’ll end up in more of a timeshare with youngster Miguel Amaya in 2024 after Amaya showed flashes of being a potential regular behind the plate in 53 games in the majors this year.
Good, he’s proven he’s back to being healthy and was effective last year.
acoss, exactly, teams need to come into a season with at least 7 pitchers who project as realistic starting pitching candidates. Hendricks earned this contract and deserves it – based on his work last year. There probably are about 25 other teams that would absolutely love to have his services for 2024, at $16.5 M for one year. His services being locked in, fit perfectly with the timeline that the Cubs starting pitching is projected to deliver over the next few years.
Hendricks has been an excellent pitcher, teammate and mentor to the Cubs organization.
Dogbone
Exactly, Hendriks is basically the closest we have to a modern Greg Maddux, both on the mound and his demeanor with the clubhouse. 16.5 million is a great deal considering the price for starting pitching.
Yikes. Worst stuff+ in the game last year
But near the top in hard hit percentage and barrels. Even if his stuff isn’t great hitters have trouble making hard contact cuz when he is on he throws darts.
For sure. But was 10th percentile in barrels the year before. The contact quality stuff can be volatile
He was hurt, genius.
Was he hurt the previous 2 years when it was even worse?
An ERA of 3.7 and a 46% ground ball rate in 137 innings is a no brained- even for haters.
Over the last ten years the most underrated pitcher in baseball…..now the most under appreciated.
He’s now a 4-5 starter, but I couldn’t agree more. He will be even more effective next season if Ricketts actually gets off his wallet for a TOR starter to go with Steele. Or they can trade for one..
No the cubs should go after another hitter and help for the bullpen. Starting pitching they have steele,, hendricks, wicks, assad, tallon, young arms in the minors. Spending money just for the sake of spending money doesn’t work ask the mets and the angels. You have to spend the money wisely.
He has the best control out of all active players. He’s never had a fastball that averages better than 89 mph, but he’s also always been excellent at getting hitters to chase and make weak contact because his control is elite. Believe it or not, his 87.6 average fastball velocity is the hardest he’s thrown since 2016, so there’s no reason to think he can’t still generate good results going forward.
Probably about 4% of them. This has been a certainty since he proved pretty healthy in about May.
This is a good move.
Time to start adding more talent.
They only have two other rotation locks so it’s a good move. Now take the Stroman money and get another starter.
Actually they have 4 total, Steele, Assad, Hendricks, and Tailion. With Wicks, Weszeskni, or whoever they sign battling for the 5th spot.
I’d say he is equivalent to where Greg Maddux was in his late 30’s.. he’s not gonna wow you, but he’s gonna hit his spots, he’s gonna have a high 3 or low 4 ERA with a 1.2-ish WHIP. He’s gonna have his share of clunker starts, but he’s also gonna give you 6IP with 2-3 ER numerous times.
Adding a Nola or Yamamoto to this stuff would give them depth bc injuries to pitching is inevitable, and it would also give them insurance in the event that Steele gets hurt or has an underwhelming year next year. Outside of Steele, this staff lacks dominance.
And Steele has done it for slightly more than one season. There is a ton of talent, promise, and hope but still some proving ground out there.
Hendricks will provide some stability as the Cubs wait on the developing core in the minors.
It’s going to be very interesting how the round out the rotation and depth as the Cubs probably be preseason favorites in the division.
The Cardinals said they want to add 2 starting pitchers. If they could add Nola + Sonny Gray, they’d certainly jump up in the projections. However if they go for middle of the road type guys, I agree the Cubs will be the favorites.
Ryan—-yes, to clarify….probably favorites NOW by default more than anything. The Cards need about four starting pitchers, the Brewers are missing a key one and seem in transition and even with some positives this past year the Reds and Pirates still need more.
By no means would the Cubs be top 12-14 World Series contenders but at this point probably the better of the bunch.
@RyanD – His basic pitching stats (era, FIP, ground balls, walks) may be equivalent to Greg Maddux in his late 30’s but the one thing people forget about Maddux is how durable he was. Over his last 21 seasons in MLB, he threw 200+ innings 18 times. The 3 times he did not, he threw 199, 198 and 194, the last two of these numbers came in his age 41 & 42 seasons. If Hendricks can throw 160 innings + for the Cubs next year then the contract should be worth it so long as he doesn’t fall off a cliff ala Cory Kluber. I think it’s a good deal for the Cubs but I am worried about potential IL stints for him.
Well at least Cubs can continue their run of mediocrity by not investing in actually good pitchers. The Ricketts got some far right candidates to support.
Don’t bring politics into baseball. That’s just dumb.
Cubs probably held onto Hendricks since Stroman opted out.
You don’t have to comment on every article. You’ve been told this before. You’re completely wrong here.
Great response. My dad can beat up your dad!
Sez you!
I like the option picked up on Yan Gomes more than Hendricks. He was great for the Cubs. He crushed lefties this year.
Wow with Milwaukee Brewers may lose their long time manager and St Louis Cardinals rebuilding. And Pittsburgh Pirates been the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds be cheap.
The Chicago Cubs could have Central Division wrap up by Labor Day
Can somebody please explain FIP to me as if I was a third grader? Whichever definition I look up doesn’t seem to make sense to me. The way it’s calculated and then indexed to make it coincide with ERA doesn’t make intuitive sense to me. It’s like you can tell a story with with ERA (3.22 ERA means the pitcher gave up an average of 3.22 earned runs per nine innings pitched blah blah) but a 3.22 FIP you can’t say it means a pitcher gives up an average of 3.22 “fips” per nine innings. So how do you tell the story? Thank you so much for anyone’s help!
@ Ignorant SOB – Fielding Independent Pitching converts a pitcher’s three true outcomes into an earned run average-like number. The formula is (13*HR+3*(HBP+BB)-2*K)/IP, plus a constant (usually around 3.2) to put it on the same scale as earned run average.
The point of this is to come up with an equivalence to ERA if the pitcher was to experience league average results on balls in play. So a pitcher who plays for a team with a bad defense, his FIP will most likely be lower than his ERA, while a pitcher who plays for the best defensive club will probably have a higher FIP than his ERA. It doesn’t always work like this but I hope that helps a bit. It’s not a super easy stat to explain.
Thank you so much Mantooth, that helped a lot and I appreciate you taking the time.
I didn’t tell you because I’ll bet like me, Now that you know, You realize it’s worthless.
They must think Yan can catch.
can you?
I can see Yan Gomes playing till he’s 40
The only “experts” that didn’t think it was going to happen were the self proclaimed experts who write articles for this site. Everyone else saw it as a no brainer.
It could have been worse. They could have extended him and tossed in a NTC I guess.
What a great day.
I wouldn’t have kept Hendriks. I know you can’t get a much better starter for 16.5, but you could use that money to contribute to a solid starter such as Nola or Snell. His margin of error is so small, and while he had a good season, he’s getting older, and I’m afraid they’ll think they have a rotation now. But they do not have a championship starting rotation unless they add a #1 or 2. They have a rotation full of 3 -5’s. I expect regression from Steele. He looked injured at the end of last season.
It says I muted somebody but I never have. How do you unmute someone? I’ve clicked on my profile and nobody is listed there.
This website has a glitch where it shows you muted someone when you did not.
You might even see yourself get muted and all of your comments go missing. (Yes, you can mute yourself)
Give it a few mins, it should sort itself out.
I never mute anybody. I fight my own battles, Always have. Thanks for the info. Figured it was a site problem or for awhile I had a stalker who used 1536 instead of 1526 and used a different clown.
Did the issue fix itself for you?
Yeah it just faded away in like 10 minutes. Thanks, There was always the possibility that I screwed up, But 4 times? Even I’m not that dizzy usually. Thanks again. It’s the first time it’s happened to me.
When Hendricks retires I think pitching coach for him imo
I’m not saying that he wouldn’t be ok with that job – but Hendricks to me doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would want to hang around the game as a coach. He seems like he’d be perfectly happy on a golf course with friends – and then becoming more involved with his kids and family. Likely he just might be happier coaching kids.
The Cubs weren’t going to watch Hendrick’s and Stroman leave in the same offseason so this is not a surprise.
Stroman walks and they pick up Hendricks $16.5m option…
True. Mlbtr writes did not want Hendricks back with the cubs. At all. Wrote a long windy article about it. Thankfully mlbtr are not running a team.
They didn’t like Steele either for 3/4 of the season.
For some, you have to have gutty strike out numbers and/or be a highly regarded prospect for them to think you are any good.
Lol did one of them must’ve made fun of your question in a chat or made you look dumb to be this sour. That’s the problem with thinking you’re smarter than you actually are. When people correct you multiple times in a short period of time you start pouting. I see this everyday when I correct people for being wrong.