The Tigers have hired recently retired right-hander Kyle Hendricks as a special assistant to the baseball operations department, reports Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic. While Hendricks never pitched for Detroit during his excellent 12-year major league career, he knows both Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris and general manager Jeff Greenberg dating back to the pair’s days in the Cubs’ front office. Stavenhagen adds that Hendricks is expected to focus his efforts on pitching development.
Hendricks, 36, spent 11 seasons (2014-24) pitching with the Cubs and finished up his career with the Angels in 2025. He retired with a career 3.79 ERA, 105 wins and 1373 strikeouts through 1745 innings in the major leagues. All of that success came despite Hendricks lacking the prototypical power arsenal associated with modern pitchers. He never averaged even 91 mph on his four-seamer in a given season, finishing with an overall average velocity of 87.2 mph on his “fastball” in his career.
A throwback to generations past, Hendricks thrived thanks to excellent command, a good feel for pitching and a knack for avoiding hard contact. “The Professor” and his thoughtful approach to attacking hitters with less-than-premium stuff could well prove to be an asset in developing young arms in the Detroit pipeline.
There’s been a growing number of former big leaguers climbing to prominent positions in major league front offices in recent seasons. Former players who are currently running baseball operations for their clubs include Jerry Dipoto (Mariners), Chris Getz (White Sox), Craig Breslow (Red Sox), Buster Posey (Giants) and Chris Young (Rangers). Brandon Gomes isn’t the top decision-maker for the Dodgers but holds the general manager title and sits No. 2 on their baseball operations hierarchy behind president of baseball ops Andrew Friedman. The same is true of Marlins GM Gabe Kapler, who’s the No. 2 executive behind Peter Bendix over in Miami. Sam Fuld recently held a GM position with the Phillies but is in the process of moving over to become their new president of business operations.
Hendricks’ eventual aspirations on the executive side of things aren’t yet clear, but there are certainly some parallels between the path he’s charting and the ones taken by Young and Breslow in particular. Both Young (Princeton) and Breslow (Yale) are former Ivy League standouts who enjoyed successful big league careers while operating with middling velocity. Young got his start in baseball operations working in the league’s central offices, while Breslow jumped right into the Cubs’ baseball ops department with an emphasis on strategic initiatives and pitching development. Hendricks, a Dartmouth product, could pursue a similar trajectory, though given his lengthy career and reputation within the game, he’d also surely have opportunities on the coaching side of things if he preferred to throw his hat into that ring at some point down the line.
Why on Earth wouldn’t the Cubs do that? This guy can be invaluable with his smarts and experience. Kudos to the Tigers for getting it done. Maybe Hoyer is afraid of somebody who could probably do his job better than him. But to me that would be a clown at the Circus.
The Cubs are literally 19-12. They have used 21 different pitchers. They have used nine pitchers that started the season in Iowa.
Obviously, Jed Hoyer is really good at baseball.
That bullpen of Miller, Morejon and Adam….not so good the last three days, were they???
You literally went to a Tigers story to troll Jed.
And will gladly keep doing it until he’s gone.
LMAO!
I’ve been a Cubs fan for all 70 years I’ve been alive and have seen 69 years of incompetence. I’m pretty good at recognizing it when I see it. I just hope it doesn’t take the rest of you that long.
I wish he could teach pitchers to pitch successfully more like he did, then not every pitcher would blow out their elbow or shoulder.
This man has an Ivy League education and years of experience in Pro Baseball and a WS ring. He could probably run for president if he wanted. If he gave any indication at all that he wanted to stay in baseball you would think the Cubs would have been all over it. But as usual, The Cubs FO is clueless and lost. That’s a shame. Shame on Ricketts and the Cubs in general.
You do realize that Scott Harris, POBO of the Tigers, is a protégé of Jed Hoyer and was part of that “clueless and lost” FO, don’t you?
You need a crayon map to connect the dots on this one???
@Wain Hendricks might not have had TJS he fid however blowout his shoulder.
I do like this and hope it benefits the young arms in the Tigers organization. While he seems to clearly have quite a bit of knowledge to spread, that does not makenit a certainty that he can teach it. Some people ha e a knack for teaching while others don’t.
Another question is even if hes an excellent teacher, will the knowledge he has to give benefit others when its time to utilize, calculate, and execute. Id say its almost a given he is highly intelligent, so will what he cod teach would that information be of the same value to someone of lesser intellect
Hendricks could be a solid pitching coach one day.
Interesting move. I wonder if there is/are certain pitcher(s) in mind that he can help.