Cubs exercise 2024 option for Kyle Hendricks
As expected, the Chicago Cubs exercised their $16.5 million option on Kyle Hendricks’ contract for next season, league sources said Sunday, retaining the last player left from the 2016 World Series championship team.
The Cubs also picked up Yan Gomes’ $6 million club option for next season, per a league source. The veteran catcher joined the Cubs in 2022 as a free agent and batted .267 in 2023 with 10 home runs.
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Hendricks may never be a major-league ERA leader or a Game 7 starter again, but he demonstrated that he can still be a uniquely effective starting pitcher as well as a valuable resource for younger players and a steadying presence in the clubhouse.
With Hendricks, Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon, the Cubs have the foundation for a solid rotation. Javier Assad and Jordan Wicks proved they belong in the team’s pitching plans. Hayden Wesneski might get another chance in the rotation at some point. Cade Horton and Ben Brown are two highly regarded pitching prospects who could make their major-league debuts next year.
You can never have enough pitching, as Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer likes to say. That means the Cubs would have been fine if Marcus Stroman decided to return for one more year in Chicago. Stroman, 32, was a very good pitcher for parts of two seasons with the Cubs (16-16, 3.73 ERA), though he couldn’t maintain his All-Star level or stay healthy throughout this year.
As Major League Baseball’s general manager meetings take place in Arizona this week, Stroman’s decision opens up interesting offseason possibilities. The Cubs likely weren’t crushed that Stroman opted out of his contract because that $21 million salary can be repurposed.
Hendricks, who will turn 34 next month, was sidelined for the second half of the 2022 season and diagnosed with a capsular tear in his right shoulder, leaving his pitching future in doubt. There was a collaborative effort to design a comprehensive program that would help Hendricks get healthy, increase his strength, improve his athleticism and boost his fastball.
Hendricks didn’t make his first big-league start this year until May 25, but he finished with a 3.74 ERA over 24 starts and accounted for 137 innings, helping the Cubs avoid a sell-off at the trade deadline and play meaningful games into late September.
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“I truly didn’t have a great sense of what we were going to get out of him,” Hoyer said during an end-of-season news conference. “He was confident going into spring training and throughout the winter that he was going to get back and be the old Kyle Hendricks. And he did it. I was really impressed. He worked on his velocity and his arm strength and he was even touching some 90s in his last outing. He really had an exceptional year given what we were expecting.”
Hendricks is positioned to reach 10 years of major-league service time around the 2024 All-Star break — all with the Cubs — a remarkable feat considering all the turnover throughout the organization. That mark would give him 10-and-5 no-trade rights.
“I love it so much in Chicago,” Hendricks said on the final day of the season. “For my whole career, playing in front of the best fans in the world, going out on Wrigley Field all the time, I wouldn’t want to trade that for anything.”
The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma also contributed to this story.
(Top photo of Kyle Hendricks and Yan Gomes: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)
