Chicago Cubs: Jose Berrios trade shows Kyle Hendricks’ trade value

What a day.

We’ve seen Javier Baez and Craig Kimbrel get moved already today – just one day after the Chicago Cubs unloaded Anthony Rizzo in a deal with the Yankees. We’ll talk about those in depth in the coming days. We want to focus on the Jose Berrios deal that went down between Toronto and Minnesota earlier this morning because it could, at least in theory, impact the Cubs’ plans in the final hour.

Berrios returned an absolutely astonishing haul of Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson, an indicator of what a Kyle Hendricks trade could return. Martin, MLB’s #16 overall prospect and Richardson, the #68 overall, is a staggering return and the stuff of dreams if you’re a Twins fan.

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The right-hander will head into his third and final year of arbitration in 2022 before reaching free agency. To get a return of two top 100 prospects is an incredible return that should force Jed Hoyer to think long and hard about holding onto Hendricks.

Woods Richardson is currently in Tokyo for the Olympics representing Team USA. Though he has only registered a 2-4 with a 5.76 ERA in Double-A ball so far, his 13.3 strikeouts per nine innings is impressive and shows his potential should he put it all together.

Martin carries a .281/.424/.383 line with the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats. He is living up to his hype after slashing .368/.474/.532 at Vanderbilt. The general consensus here with Martin is that he should be ready to be called up to the big leagues as soon as next year, when a team like the Cubs could really use him. Unfortunately, that ship sailed now with him joining the Twins organization.

Chicago Cubs: Kyle Hendricks has an insane amount of trade value right now

Sticking with that math, trading Hendricks now, who has an additional two years of team control, would bring back a whale of a return from a contending team right now. In fact, unless Hendricks were to go on a serious Cy Young-caliber season next year, you could argue that his trade value will never be higher as a Cub than right this minute.

There are several teams out there that need a starter. Hoyer needs to act fast if he is looking to get a serious return for his ace. It can be done and should be something that he should seriously considers given the fact he’s unloaded nearly everything else of value in the last hour.