Top 10 Chicago Cubs trade candidates, ranked

Chicago Cubs Trade Candidates: #8 – Kyle Hendricks

Kyle Hendricks has bounced back from a slow start to the 2021 season to re-assume his role atop the Cubs rotation. The soft-tossing right-hander is tied for the league lead with 10 wins and carries a 3.83 ERA across 98 2/3 innings of work.

Last season, he finished ninth in NL Cy Young voting, but this year, he’s battled some issues with the long ball. Hendricks leads all of baseball with 20 home runs allowed. That being said, half of those came in the season’s first month. He’s lowered his ERA a season-worst 6.23 mark on May 9 all the way down to 3.83 following his most recent start.

Trading Hendricks would cripple the Cubs. The starting rotation is already in shambles following last winter’s trade of Yu Darvish. Jake Arrieta is on the shelf and may very well be done altogether following another disastrous outing, Trevor Williams is just getting back to the mound and Alec Mills is hit-or-miss.

But given the number of teams on the hunt for starting pitching, someone like Hendricks, who is under control for two more years with a vesting option for 2024, could be especially appealing. When you consider he doesn’t live and die with velocity, clubs might project him to age more effectively, as well.