A magical sendoff for a Cubs legend in a 3-0 win.
What a day. We all have so many memories of Kyle Hendricks. Obviously, he started some of the most significant games in modern Cubs history, a statement that can be made without even an ounce of hyperbole. He started the deciding games of both the NLCS and the World Series in 2016, dominating the Dodgers in the first of those two games.
He’s not the greatest stat accumulator. He finishes this season with fewer than 100 career wins. He does check in at seventh in Cubs history in strikeouts. Playing on several mediocre Cubs teams suppressed his win total. Being a contact manager limited his strikeouts. He finishes his 2024 Cubs season with 1,257 strikeouts over 1,573 innings. The pitcher just ahead of him in Cubs history is a somewhat similar pitcher in Greg Maddux. I mean, Greg is a fairly unique pitcher in baseball history, but in broad overarching brushes, they are similar in a focus on deception rather than overpowering stuff that has become so common.
My most treasured Kyle memory is taking my daughter out of school for the game against the Cardinals when he threw a complete game shutout on fewer than a hundred pitches. That game was May 3, 2019. For so many reasons, that game feels like it was a lifetime ago. My wife wasn’t delighted at the timing of taking my daughter out of school for long forgotten reasons. But that game is in the inner circle of my favorite Cubs games I ever attended.
So many memories swirled yesterday as Kyle maybe started for his last time as a Cub. The storyline could hardly have worked out much better for him. He threw shutout baseball into the eighth inning. The Cubs orchestrated his removal and celebration about as perfect as can be. If this was it for his time with the Cubs, it was quite a curtain call.
And here I am the morning after looking at a bunch of stats as I’ve done for over a thousand times since starting to write this feature. I just wrote recently about the fascinating thing that is players finding their level. 2024 was beyond rough for Kyle. And yet, his K/9 is actually a touch better than last year (6.2 v 6.11). His BB/9 is the worst of his career and his HR/9 problem that were such a problem in 2021 and 2022 resurfaced.
And yet, the garish ERA that plagued him for most of the year dipped to 6.28 down the stretch. A horrible number by any measure. But then we see an xERA of 4.94 and a FIP of 5.07. I’m not sugarcoating anything. But I’m saying it rebounded down the stretch. Over his last 17 starts, he had a 4.73 ERA and a 4.43 FIP.
He’ll be 35 next year. There was always a concern that his margins were slim enough that he’d face significant challenges. And yet, after those rough 2021 and 2022 seasons, he bounced back to be a pretty effective pitcher in 2023. His 2023 season actually sits in his top five for fWAR for his career. I’m not counting him out.
I’ll repeat that I’m happy this offseason to not be a Cubs decision maker for so many reasons. These decisions this offseason are not simple. They need to get better and the changes aren’t obvious. If Kyle Hendricks and his agent came to me and offered to pitch at or near league minimum with an incentive laden contract, I’m not positive what I’d do. Obviously, my brain says it’s time to move on. But also, if I tighten my search to just the five starts he’s made in September, Kyle has a 2.89 ERA and 3.52 FIP.
Break out the British accent. Not dead yet.
It certainly would have been nice if the Cubs offense arrived an inning or two earlier and Kyle would be the winning pitcher one more time. Alas, that wasn’t the way it played out. But I’ll enjoy that his likely last start as a Cub notched a top 10 2024 Cubs WPA performance. He’s not only the Superhero but he slid into the 10th best performance of the year. Having covered a number of 162’s, I’m supremely confident Kyle will remain there.
As a tag on, that Superhero performance pulls him out of the bottom five in the Rizzo standings. At one point, it looked like he’d be the runaway loser this year. But he’s rebounded terrifically. If Pete Crow-Armstrong is the Billy Goat today and Dansby Swanson in one of the other two negative spots, Kyle won’t even finish in the bottom 10 (assuming none of the other players behind him pass him).
It’s always hard to know what to make of these late season, playing out the string games. I don’t know where the credit for superior performances by the Cubs pitching staff and the disinterested Reds offense begin and end. 18 scoreless innings over the first two games of this series is definitely impressive on some level. Jameson Taillon, Kyle Hendricks, Tyson Miller and Porter Hodge have combined to throw 18 scoreless innings.
On the other side, I noted that Reds starter Rhett Lowder was another in a long line of impressive young starters the Cubs would face in 2024. He held the Cubs to just three hits and three walks in five innings of work. Buck Farmer threw a scoreless seventh but went back out for the eighth and allowed a lead-off double. Then ex-Cub Justin Wilson went in and allowed two hits and issued an intentional walk to the three batters he faced. The Cubs turned that into three runs and left as winners.
83 wins. That matches last season with a chance to one up that season. In a cruel irony, 84 would have been enough last year. This year it’s well short. Too many winnable games were fumbled away. I think this team would almost certainly have been a quick elimination, but I don’t think they would have embarrassed themselves. I mean, how could you think that? They won 83 games and 28 more times they lost by one. 111 times or basically two-thirds of the season, they either one or lost by a single run.
Only the Toronto Blue Jays lost more one-run games. To Jed Hoyer’s point a few years ago about good teams and close games, the Astros are a division winner with an 18-27 record in one-run games. Of the 12 playoff teams, four of them have losing records in one-run games and a fifth is only one game over in that situation. Cleveland, Detroit and the New York Mets are the only three that have excelled in close games. Clearly, when you are at the margins of contention, being good in those games matters. But the Dodgers, Phillies, Brewers and Yankees are all fairly average in them, despite having the best overall records.
Let’s look at the three stars of another Cubs win.
Three Stars:
- Kyle Hendricks. 26 batters, two hits, two walks. Legend.
- Seiya Suzuki. Two singles, two walks, one run.
- Dansby Swanson, a double, a walk, a run and a steal. His double started the decisive rally.
Game 161, September 28: Cubs 3, Reds 0 (83-78)
Fangraphs
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Kyle Hendricks (.482). 7⅓ IP, 26 BF, 2 H, 2 BB, 2 K
- Hero: Seiya Suzuki (.125). 2-2, 2 BB, R
- Sidekick: Dansby Swanson (.106). 1-3, 2B, BB, R, SB
THREE GOATS:
- Billy Goat: Michael Busch (-.177). 0-3
- Goat: Nico Hoerner (-.084). 0-4
- Kid: Patrick Wisdom (-.080). 0-3
WPA Play of the Game: With the game scoreless, Dansby Swanson led off the bottom of the eighth with a double. (.135)
*Reds Play of the Game: Rhett Lowder got Michael Busch to fly out with two outs and the bases loaded in the third. (.080)
Player of the Game:
Yesterday’s Winner: Jameson Taillon received 102 of 122 votes.
Rizzo Award Cumulative Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)
The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.
- Shōta Imanaga +23.5
- Seiya Suzuki +20.5
- Jameson Taillon +18
- Christian Bethancourt +16
- Porter Hodge +14
- Jordan Wicks -10.5
- Patrick Wisdom -11
- Miles Mastrobuoni -12
- Isaac Paredes -14
- Christopher Morel -20.5
*Hendricks leaves the bottom five at -8, Suzuki up to second and could tie for first with a Superhero Sunday, Swanson up to -8. Busch down to -4.5, Hoerner down to -3.5, Wisdom slides into the bottom five.
Up Next: Once more into the breach we go. Caleb Kilian (0-1, 7.94) will start a bullpen game to close it out. This was Shōta Imanaga’s usual spot in the rotation. Kilian is stretched out, so I suspect he’ll throw as long as he is reasonably effective. But all of the relievers not named Hodge and Miller haven’t pitched in a game since at least Wednesday. So we should see a number of them unless Kilian shoves. And a reminder that today’s game starts an hour later than usual, at 2:20 p.m. CT.
Let’s get the win and be one of the teams that finishes on a high note.