Kyle Hendricks retires and Cubs fans are reliving 2016 all over again

Longtime Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks is retiring. Hendricks spent the 2025 season with the Los Angeles Angels, and during the final weeks of the regular season, speculation suggested that the 2016 World Series champion was going to call it a career after the season. While Hendricks initially downplayed retirement talk, the Chicago Sun-Times' Maddie Lee reports that the 35-year-old starting pitcher is, in fact, hanging it up.

In his final season, Hendricks posted an ERA of 4.76 while making 31 starts with the Angels. Given the need for pitching across baseball, Hendricks certainly could have found a job with another team this offseason. Even if he wasn't quite The Professor anymore, Hendricks proved himself more than capable of taking the mound every five days.

While nothing has been confirmed, it would be a safe assumption that Hendricks will receive the Anthony Rizzo treatment at Wrigley Field next season. This past summer, Rizzo signed a one-day deal to officially retire as a member of the Cubs' organization. That would only be fitting for Hendricks, who started Game 7 of the World Series for the Cubs in 2016.

The Kyle Hendricks' trade was one of the defining deals of the Cubs' World Series run.

The trade for Kyle Hendricks will prove to be one of the best deals in the history of the Cubs' organization. At the MLB trade deadline in 2012, the Cubs traded veteran starting pitcher Ryan Dempster to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Hendricks and Christian Villanueva.

In 11 seasons with the Cubs, Hendricks pitched a 3.68 ERA while totaling 1,259 strikeouts. During a time when the game shifted toward pitchers with high velocity, Hendricks was an anomaly, and that is what made him great. Hendricks did not have the speed to blow his fastball by hitters. Instead, Hendricks mastered pitch location, changing the eye level of hitters to make his pitches seem faster than they were. It was the definition of watching an artist at work.

It's worth mentioning that the Cubs are planning on honoring the 2016 World Series team at the Cubs Convention in January. Given his new role, it feels like a foregone conclusion that Rizzo will be in attendance. Now that Hendricks has some free time, it would be a safe assumption that he will make an appearance of some sort.