MESA, Ariz. – As Chicago Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks takes the mound for one of his final appearances this spring -- in a “B” game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday -- there’s one lingering question to answer before he begins his first full season in the Cubs' rotation.
Just how good can he be? What’s his ceiling?
If you talked with a scout as recently as last season more than likely they would have told you he might be a back-end of the rotation pitcher. If you talked with ESPN analyst and spring instructor Rick Sutcliffe he would tell you Hendricks is a special pitcher who gives him the same vibe that hurlers such as Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina and Jake Peavy once gave him. That’s high praise.
And if you had talked with any of the prospect experts who do it for a living many would have said he wouldn’t make it in the big leagues with a fastball that tops off at 86-88 mph.
So who was right? You know by now -- despite Hendricks only making a handful of starts in the majors.
“Oh, he’s looking much better than a 4 or 5,” that same scout said recently. “He gets outs.”
Hendricks was overlooked at every turn. He was drafted in the eighth round by the Texas Rangers and despite a mind-boggling 7.5 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio in the minors in 2012 he didn’t get much publicity when the Cubs traded for him in exchange for Ryan Dempster that summer. He didn’t make any top 10 prospect lists and was even behind a Cubs pitcher who hadn’t thrown in two years. The lack of attention came down to one thing: Hendricks doesn’t light up the radar gun.
“Pitching is about movement and location and disrupting timing every bit as much as it is about velocity,” Cubs president Theo Epstein said. “As an industry we’ve gotten lazy falling back on the radar gun as a way to make fine line distinctions between pitchers. And the reality is it's important but there are other foundational building blocks to pitching.”
Epstein and the front office did their homework on Hendricks after a deal with the Atlanta Braves fell apart. Third base prospect Christian Villanueva was more highly rated as the other player the Cubs received from Texas but it’s Hendricks who has made an early splash. He went 7-2 with a 2.46 ERA in 12 starts last season solidifying a spot in the rotation in 2015. His spring hasn’t been bad either. He has a 0.00 ERA in two Cactus League appearances.
“He jumped off the page statistically when you take an advanced look at him,” Epstein said. “Makeup was a huge part of it. We were able to use some connections and talk to some people who had played with him and had him as a player either as a coach or front office person. He stood out. People we trusted went to bat for the kid’s makeup and said he will get the absolute most out of ability and he has ability. They were right.”
The comparisons to Maddux stem from two things: Hendricks’ lack of velocity and his ability to throw a big pitch when he needs to. Like Maddux, he’ll set hitters up.
“He’s shown the ability to make the big pitch,” Epstein said. “He has some tools now. He has a really good sinker. His sinker moves straight down. And it’s late. Who cares if its 89 or 88, it gets a ground ball?”
Teammate Mike Olt added: “I don’t know much about pitching, but he looks one step ahead of the hitter. That’s his entire game plan, to be a step ahead.”
You might be surprised that the Dartmouth grad doesn’t rely on anything more than “feel” when he’s pitching. He didn’t go back and look at a lot of his starts from last season nor did he examine the numbers. Some of those numbers would indicate he was more fortunate than good. For example, according to ESPN Stats and Information, his hard hit average (.162) was higher than the league average but yet his home run rate (0.45 per 9 IP) was way down as was his batting average on balls in play (.275).
In layman terms, Hendricks gave up hard contact but didn’t give up a lot of damage because of it. Why? He simply made the big pitch at the right time. And that’s not by accident. He induced 11 double play balls in 12 games. That’s a huge number.
“He can make balls look like strikes and strikes look like balls,” Epstein said. “It opens up a lot. He has a lot of different ways to shape a big pitch in a big spot.”
New Cubs manager Joe Maddon is experiencing Hendricks for the first time and is understanding why so many people like him. He’s the very definition of low maintenance.
“I’m very careful about being too smart with people that don’t need your help,” Maddon said recently. “There’s nothing I can say to help him except ‘hello.’”
What 25 year-old rookie doesn’t need help from his veteran manager? Not many.
“People will not project him highly because he’s not lighting up the gun but he lights up the location,” Maddon said. “Ask a hitter what they think. A hitter is going to tell you by the way he reacts to his pitches. He’s good. He’s real good. He just gets hitters out. They go back to the dugout, they’re all very upset. They’re breaking bats, wondering how did he beat me like that? And that happens 16, 17 times a year when he wins games.”
Prospect gurus are wondering the same thing. How did Hendricks defy their projections?
“Sky’s the limit for him,” Sutcliffe said. “Watch out for this kid.”
Everyone is now.
