Halos Keep Busy, Add Kyle Hendricks

Effectively, the Angels aren’t ready round, are they? Within the week instantly following the World Sequence, the Halos have accomplished the one commerce up to now this offseason involving gamers stepping into every path. They’ve additionally acquired Scott Kingery from the Phillies for money concerns and executed a waiver declare on Oakland’s Ryan Noda, each low-risk acquisitions with the potential to fill a distinct segment on the huge league degree.

The Triple-A primary base depth chart for the Angels proper now lists Noda alongside Niko Kavadas and Sonny DiChiara, which is a bumper crop of cube-shaped school sluggers if ever there have been one. Somebody discover out what Tim Elko is as much as and provides him a name so the Angels can have the total set. However I digress.

Amidst all that different exercise, Perry Minasian and Co. have made this offseason’s most notable free agent signing up to now: right-handed pitcher Kyle Hendricks, late of the Chicago Cubs. Hendricks was the second main league free agent to signal up to now this offseason, after Dylan Covey’s one-year take care of the Mets, and he’s a much bigger title by far. A two-time Cy Younger vote-getter and a cornerstone of the profitable Cubs groups of the late 2010s, Hendricks joins the Angels on a one-year, $2.5 million deal.

ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, who reported the worth of Hendricks’ contract on Wednesday afternoon, famous that the Angels have been within the 34-year-old right-hander partially as a result of he might mentor a younger pitching workers. I feel baseball folks are typically fast to evaluate persona primarily based on stereotype. Hendricks went to Dartmouth and hasn’t damaged 91 mph in a aggressive recreation in eight years — which feels like hyperbole however is actually true — so he should be sensible. And if he’s sensible, he should be a coach on the sphere or one thing prefer it.

If that’s the motivation for signing Hendricks, it’s a reasonably amusing idea, contemplating the Angels aren’t precisely placing out a Era Ok-type hype prepare for his or her younger arms. Nonetheless, the soft-tossin’-est righty starter of his technology makes for an amusing distinction with Ben Joyce. And the cabinet isn’t fully naked. Reid Detmers was horrendous final season, however his underlying numbers have been merely unhealthy and he had two good seasons earlier than that. And I appreciated what I noticed out of Jack Kochanowicz the couple occasions I noticed him pitch in 2024. (Although I notice now at the least a type of begins was in opposition to the White Sox, so take that for what it’s price.)

With all that mentioned, Hendricks does really look like a sensible man, and contemplate this: Since that final 91-mph pitch in Sport 6 of the 2016 NLCS, Hendricks has thrown 1,130 main league innings with an ERA- of 96 and accrued 16.4 WAR. So he will need to have some tips up his sleeve.

And whereas $2.5 million may be rather a lot to pay for a pitching coach, it’s a pittance for a pitcher with even a distant probability of throwing 100 or more practical huge league innings. For distinction, it’s lower than a 3rd of what the Angels are going to pay Evan White to benefit from the scenic fantastic thing about Salt Lake Metropolis this summer time. However hey, the Angels are a big-market crew. Even of their post-Shohei Ohtani lean years, the Halos ran a $170 million payroll final season, which was thirteenth within the majors. This can be a rounding error.

Hendricks had spent his whole 11-season main league profession with the Cubs, who acquired him in a commerce with the Rangers in 2012. (Ryan Dempster went the opposite method.) After a interval of decline for each participant and crew, it appeared like the 2 have been sure to half methods ultimately, and it is smart that he’d need to go to the Angels. Hendricks grew up in Orange County, and was even drafted by the Angels out of highschool in 2008. He’s one among 4 future huge leaguers who have been drafted within the thirty ninth spherical in 2008 however didn’t signal that yr. The others: Mikie Mahtook, Brad Miller, and Yan Gomes. If “traded for Ryan Dempster” doesn’t offer you a way of Hendricks’ age, maybe a Mikie Mahtook reference will put you in the suitable mind set.

Now, I’ve been burying the lede a bit of right here. These of you who didn’t observe the Cubs final season may be curious how Hendricks received on, and are questioning why I haven’t introduced up his stats from 2024 but. Effectively, they’re not superior.

This previous season, 126 pitchers threw at the least 100 innings within the majors. Hendricks ranked 124th in ERA, two spots behind Patrick Corbin, who’s principally a punchline at this level in his profession. Now, Hendricks’ peripherals recommend he was a bit of laborious executed by, however a 5.92 ERA provides a number of room for a pitcher to be unfortunate and unhealthy on the similar time. Certainly, Hendricks was 107th in xERA (4.80) and 121st in FIP (4.98). He was second from the underside in strikeout price, at 15.3%, and his stroll price was merely common and never distinctive, which left him a hundred and twentieth in Ok-BB%.

Breaking it down pitch by pitch, issues don’t get a lot rosier. Hendricks received respectable outcomes on his curveball in 2024, however that’s not his make-or-break pitch. The important thing for Hendricks is his changeup — it has been his whole profession.

Hendricks’ repertoire has advanced since he was a rookie, which is to be anticipated for a pitcher who’s lasted so long as he has. However the core of it has at all times been the sinker and the changeup. Hendricks has at all times thrown a further fastball — initially a cutter, extra just lately a four-seamer — and had at the least the credible risk of a curveball. However in each season of Hendricks’ profession, his sinker and changeup have mixed to make up between 61% and 81% of his complete pitches thrown.

That combo has labored very properly as just lately as 2023, when Hendricks allowed a 3.74 ERA in 24 begins for the Cubs. That’s not fairly pretty much as good as he was in 2016, but when Hendricks had hit free company 12 months earlier, he’d be in line to make 4 or 5 occasions as a lot as he’s making now. Probably extra.

What’s the distinction between 2023 and 2024? Effectively, in 2023, Hendricks’ sinker was satisfactory and his changeup was a official out pitch. A yr later, each of these pitches received completely torched:

One among two issues goes to occur to Hendricks within the season to return. He might determine one thing out and get his 2023 type again; it’s not like he’s shedding the rate or stuff that when made him nice. He tinkered along with his fastball combine to lefties in 2024, throwing them extra sinkers than four-seamers for the primary time since he began throwing a four-seamer usually. And what occurred? Left-handed hitters hit a fair .400 — once more, not a joke — in opposition to his sinker. Contemplating the same motion profiles of the 2 pitches, and the mere six mile-an-hour distinction between them, that might appear to be an apparent place to begin in the case of triaging Hendricks’ issues.

Nevertheless it’s additionally doable that Hendricks put up an ERA close to 6.00 final season as a result of he simply doesn’t have it anymore. There are actually worse locations to seek out that out than in Southern California, 30 miles from house. And if that is the tip, he’s already received irons within the hearth on his subsequent job. At the least someone thinks he’d be a very good coach.