Cubs: Your guide to all things fantasy baseball for the 2021 season

Chicago Cubs: Kyle Hendricks is darn-near a lock to have success

The now undisputed ace of this Cubs staff, Kyle Hendricks, continues to be one of the most criminally underrated pitchers in baseball, all thanks to the fact that he can’t break the 90 MPH threshold with a fastball. However, pitching is about getting outs and wins, both things that Hendricks has done extremely well since he broke into the bigs.

The wins part is certainly music to fantasy owners’ ears, but Hendricks has never been a big strikeout guy throughout his career, as he relies on keeping hitters off-balance and inducing weak contact most of the time. He does have his strikeout binges, however, when his changeup is particularly effective, but he’ll never be a double digits per game kind of guy.

After Hendricks, your other options are all relative unknowns either because of changes of scenery, injury risk, or because they haven’t pitched a full season at the big league level. Jake Arrieta, while certainly not unknown to Cubs or baseball fans in general, has had some injury issues and mediocre seasons he’s looking to bounce back from. While coming back to Chicago may reinvigorate the former Cy Young winner and be cause for optimism amongst Cub fans, it’s doubtful he’ll be more than a middling option for fantasy owners at this point in his career.