Chicago Cubs: Trading Kyle Hendricks now would be a massive mistake

Given the decisions the Chicago Cubs front office made at the trade deadline, here in the early weeks of the offseason, you can’t label anyone on this severely depleted roster as ‘untouchable’ – and that includes right-hander Kyle Hendricks.

Hendricks, 31, is coming off a clunker of a 2021 season in which he saw almost every metric trend in the wrong direction. Everything listed below represented a career-worst mark for the veteran.

• 4.77 ERA
• 4.89 FIP
• 1.348 WHIP
• 9.9 H/9 and 200 H allowed (most in all of MLB)
• 2.98 K/BB
• 1.5 HR/9

We’ll dig in a bit more on all this in a second. But first, I wanted to circle back to a piece I read this morning over at Bleacher Nation that caught my eye. Among other topics, Brett touched on a recent ESPN roundtable where Jesse Rogers speculated on the availability of Hendricks via trade this offseason.

Now you can read both of those pieces at your own leisure – and I encourage you to do so – but I have to just come out right here and say: there is no world where the Cubs trade Hendricks this winter and get anything that even feels like a solid return in exchange. Literally no chance at all.

He’s long defied conventional logic in terms of his repertoire, which features one of the lowest average pitch velocities in the game. There’s nothing overpowering about his stuff. He lives and dies by hitting his spots and avoiding leaving pitches hanging out over the heart of the plate. The only problem being he failed to do that in 2021, allowing more home runs than all but six other starters in the league.

So to hear that Rogers thinks the Cubs would listen and have any shot at all of recouping anything with real value is pretty surprising to me. He points out the fact that Hendricks has been remarkably durable, has pitched in some of the biggest games in franchise history and has a great reputation in the clubhouse as factors that could improve his value. But none of that matters because baseball is, maybe more than ever, a ‘what have you done for me lately’ business.

And, lately, Hendricks hasn’t done much of anything to make potential trade partners think he’s what he was five years ago, when he anchored a Cubs staff in the midst of one of the strongest runs in franchise history.

Chicago Cubs blew their chance at trading Kyle Hendricks at the trade deadline

Now, obviously, what the Cubs should do is hope and pray Hendricks gets back on track in 2022. They need him to if they want to have any shot at competing in the National League Central. If they really wanted to move him, they would have been better off shopping him hard this summer, when they were unloading anything and everything of value anyway.

At that point, Hendricks wasn’t pitching like an ace by any means. But he could have given a postseason hopeful a steady presence in the rotation at a relative value ($14 million annually 2021-2023 with a $16 million option for 2024). He carried a 3.77 ERA in 18 first half starts and, by and large, was doing what he typically does on the mound.

It was in the second half that the wheels totally fell off – and, with that, his trade value plummeted to an all-time low. Now is not the time to look to dump him. Because you’ll get pennies on the dollar in return and an already awful starting rotation would just be that much worse next year. I’m not saying there won’t be a time where trading Kyle Hendricks makes sense. But that time certainly isn’t right now.