The Red Sox announced this afternoon that right-hander Liam Hendriks underwent successful right elbow ulnar nerve transposition surgery today today, as relayed by MassLive’s Chris Cotillo. A timeline for Hendriks’s recovery was not announced.
Hendriks, 36, was shut down with forearm tightness earlier this month. The right-hander has recorded just 18 2/3 innings over the past three seasons due to a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as well as Tommy John surgery. He returned to the mound in April of this year for the Red Sox, but was sidelined by what was initially described as hip inflammation, though Hendriks later clarified he was diagnosed with a hernia that eventually turned out to be an abdominal strain. Whatever the ailment that sidelined him throughout the summer was, Hendriks was on the way towards a return before the aforementioned tightness in his forearm cropped up.
That tightness led to today’s surgery, which is a somewhat common follow-up procedure after Tommy John surgery. As noted by Cotillo, Hendriks’s Red Sox teammate Zack Kelly underwent the same procedure in 2023. After going under the knife at the beginning of May that year, he returned to a big league mound just under five months later at the tail end of September. If Hendriks were to follow a similar recovery timeline, that would allow him to be only slightly delayed coming into Spring Training 2026 and may not impact his availability for next year’s Opening Day at all.
Whether that return to the mound will come with the Red Sox or in another organization is up in the air. The club and Hendriks hold a mutual option for the 2026 season valued at $12MM, but mutual options virtually never get exercised and it seems all but certain the Red Sox will decline their end of the option and instead pay Hendriks a $2MM buyout as he returns to the free agent market. Once there, it will be interesting to see how he’s valued by the rest of the league. The righty’s lack of innings in recent years, laundry list of injury woes, and ugly 6.59 ERA when he was healthy enough to pitch for the Red Sox this year might make him seem like an arm who won’t be able to garner more than a minor league offer.
Hendriks’s value cannot be so easily dismissed, however. After all, this is a pitcher who was on the shortlist for the very best relief arms in all of baseball the last time he was truly healthy. From 2019 to 2022, Hendriks made three All-Star games and was twice received MLB’s Reliever of the Year award for his stellar work out of the bullpen. In that four-year stretch, Hendriks posted a dazzling 2.26 ERA with an even better 2.13 FIP, struck out 38.8% of his opponents, and collected 114 saves.
Even with Hendriks’s age and injury history, a player with a track record that elite is bound to garner some serious interest from bullpen-needy clubs. After all, Kirby Yates had a similar three-year stretch of injury woes from 2020 to 2022 before he turned things around to post a 2.21 ERA with Atlanta and Texas in his age-36 and -37 seasons. David Robertson threw just 18 2/3 innings between 2019 and 2021 before enjoying a resurgence with the Cubs in 2022 that has extended his career past his fortieth birthday. Kenley Jansen will celebrate his 38th birthday tomorrow, while Aroldis Chapman will do the same in February. Neither age nor years of injury woes are necessarily a death knell for an elite reliever’s career, and there will surely be teams interested in rolling the dice on Hendriks this winter to see if he can be the next injured hurler to recapture his All-Star form in his late thirties.
Hoping for a speedy recovery. Best of luck to Liam.
Can Liam catch a break? Hope he gets better fast.
Not that MLB is a charity or anything, but out of most players, Hendriks is a guy I’d love to see the Sox pick up the $12M option on anyway, just to give him the money, since I really think he’s been on borrowed time professionally and needs to just retire and take care of his health.
Nice gesture, but don’t you think the first $75M might make the retirement ok?
He’s already collected over $35M for 18 innings of work over the last three years, received the best medical care in the world, and went over 10 years service time vesting that full pension.
If the Sox have $12M lying around, have at it…but if Liam had 50 saves this year, not sure he’d mutually agree to the $12.
As a Yankees fan, I hope the Red Sox field a full rotation of retired/injured/traded-away-but-the-red-sox-are-paying-the-full-tab pitchers.
Liam Hendriks situation is unfortunate at a human level but yes, he’s made money *and* he has $14M left in deferrals to be paid out to him over the next eight years.
But… it’s the Red Sox. So I want them to pick up that option just to be nice to him.
you want them to pick up the option to complicate their financials
Yes. Absolutely. I want them to pick up the option, feel really good about it at a human level, and then have to make some on field/active roster concessions that hurt them in 2026 to make up for the $12M they might not be paying to a productive, active player.
I’ve had the same surgery and recovery time is probably four weeks
If i am the Sox I bring him back.Can’t have enough pitching.Veteran guy.Better than Campbell.Explain his role and let him go.I think he is better than he showed this year.
If I remember correctly, Liam was not a happy camper when Chapman got the closer job. With only 18 innings of work over the last three years and limited success at that, I think it is time to move on and use that money for someone younger and with more recent success. Certainly wish him the best of luck on making a full recovery and successful comeback, but it can be with another club who can afford to take on that level of risk. The Sox are too close to being a consistent contender, that they need to focus on healthy players who will be difference makers.
Liam I think it might be time to have Retirement Surgery and go live your life
Liam had a nice run as a late inning reliever, especially for a guy who came up as one of Ron Gardenhire’s many unsuccessful, chuck n duck, pitch to contact starters in Minnesota.