Two pitchers wear Chicago Cubs logos on the caps of their Hall of Fame plaques. Two more Hall of Famers spent more of their careers with the Cubs than other teams.
One Cubs pitcher has a statue at Wrigley Field.
Five won Cy Young awards. More than 30 were All-Stars as Cubs.
But one who can’t be found on any of those lists has accomplished things none of those others have, the things that might put Kyle Hendricks on a list of Cubs pitchers so elite for their significance in franchise history that they can be counted on one hand — at least one not belonging to “Three Finger” Brown.
“He’s in the top 10 — oh, for sure,” said Fergie Jenkins, the greatest pitcher in franchise history, who is alone as a member of all those lists above.
That’s what makes Hendricks’ nearly yearlong comeback from a capsular tear in his throwing shoulder especially intriguing and worth watching over these next four months, not only for what it might mean for this club this season but also next year and beyond for the team and his understated, oversized place in its history.
“There’s just a lot that he’s done over his career here,” said Cubs broadcaster Ryan Dempster, a former All-Star pitcher and Game 1 playoff starter. “Big moments, complete games, shutouts, the Maddox game against the Cardinals that day. He’s just had all these really special moments. It wasn’t just one or two years.”
The day Hendricks debuted for the Cubs in 2014 in Cincinnati was the same day Anthony Rizzo challenged the entire population of the Reds dugout to a fight — perhaps the symbolic turning point in a Cubs’ tanking rebuild process that produced 97 wins the next season.
Since then, Hendricks has made more playoff starts than any pitcher in Cubs history, won an ERA title, earned three opening-day starts, beat the Cardinals in 2019 with a four-hit, 81-pitch shutout (the “Maddux” game), stayed prepared enough through the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020 to pitch a shutout in the delayed opener and, most significantly, become the only Cubs pitcher to win a postseason pennant clincher (by beating Clayton Kershaw) in 2016 and two weeks later become the only Cubs pitcher to start a victorious Game 7 in the World Series.
“I personally thought he could have pitched the whole game the way he had command of that (Cleveland) lineup,” Dempster said of a start from which Hendricks was pulled after a two-out walk in the fifth with a 5-1 lead. “I’m not saying anybody was wrong for taking him out, I’ve never seen a starting pitcher in Game 7 of a World Series have that much control of a game and a lineup.
“I mean, maybe you’re going back to (Jack) Morris and (John) Smoltz,” Dempster said of Morris’ 10-inning complete game over Smoltz in a 1-0 Minnesota Twins victory over the Atlanta Braves in 1991. “He had utter domination. He just wasn’t allowed to finish it.”
If anything, that might be the biggest immediate question facing Hendricks and the Cubs as he heads into Monday’s third start back from his lengthy injured-list stay.
He’s in the final guaranteed year of his contract with a 2024 option. Does he pitch well enough that they pick up the option? That they extend him? That they trade the last guy left from the 2016 championship at this year’s deadline?
“I’m hopefully nowhere close to the end,” Hendricks, 33, said after five good innings against the powerful Tampa Bay Rays that “felt much more like myself.”
“That’s where my focus is now, being back healthy.”
And if that leads to following teammates Nico Hoerner and Ian Happ with extensions heading into next year, “That’s where my mind’s at,” Hendricks said. “If I just do the day-to-day stuff, it goes back to that. Everything will take care of itself. They obviously know I love it here.”
Imagine if he were to be in the Cubs’ next playoff rotation.
He has.
“That’s what I’m really wanting to do right there,” said the right-hander, who became just the 12th pitcher in franchise history to pitch in 10 seasons — as many as Jenkins and Greg Maddux, more than Jon Lester or Rick Sutcliffe.
Hendricks doesn’t have the statue that Jenkins does, never had the All-Star rep and big-ticket swagger that Lester brought to the Cubs nor the electric stuff of Jake Arrieta or Kerry Wood.
But one of only two pitchers in Cubs history to have a Game 7 World Series start on his resumé will chart even more new territory if the last guy standing from the Last Great Cubs Team is still standing on the mound in the middle of Jed Hoyer’s Next Great Cubs team.
“That’s what you play the game for,” Hendricks said. “That’s the baseball you want to play. You want all that pressure on you. That’s when it really means something. That’s obviously the path, and I know we’re on the right path to get there.”
Said manager David Ross, who in 2015 and ‘16 was one of Hendricks’ catchers: “I definitely wouldn’t underestimate him.”
If Hendricks over the years has been overshadowed in moments or seasons by the likes of Arrieta, Lester or John Lackey, he has never been taken for granted by Ross, the manager said.
“Of course, he’s pitched big moments, but I think people should look at the body of work, at just how well he’s done for this franchise, in an era when everybody’s throwing 100 and he’s getting outs at a speed that everybody would question right now if you’re drafting guys,” Ross said.
“Man, has he done some amazing things here and been consistent with it. I trust that guy as much as anybody in my life when it comes to just how he’s going to compete, how he works, what his mentality is, how he’s going to stay in the moment and do what he does.”
Consider that from his debut through the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Hendricks had a career ERA of 3.12 — among the best in baseball over that stretch and better than such decorated, nine-figure-contract guys Justin Verlander (3.21), Gerrit Cole (3.19), Arrieta (3.21) and Lester (3.42).
“When he’s healthy, he’s as trustworthy as anybody we’ve had,” Ross said.
Which makes Monday’s start compelling for any Cubs-ophite, regardless of how compelling the rest of the team might seem at times, and then the one after that in San Francisco, and so on.
The way Jenkins sees it, that guy who felt so much more like himself Tuesday night is “totally” this team’s Game 1 playoff starter if he’s here on that day.
“He goes out there and challenges the hitters,” Jenkins said. “He goes right after the hitter.”
Dempster, for all he has done on the field and in the community, also likes to take credit for the Cubs landing Hendricks in one of the greatest trades in team history.
Check that.
“The greatest,” he said. “The greatest.”
It was only because Dempster enforced his no-trade rights at the deadline in 2012 to nix Theo Epstein’s deal with the Atlanta Braves for pitcher Randall Delgado that Epstein was forced to pivot to the Texas Rangers in the final minutes to make the deal for Hendricks.
“Get rid of an old, aging veteran for a guy who goes on to start Game 7 of the World Series?” Dempster said. “That’s the greatest trade.”
Hard to argue against its impact.
“He’s going to go down as one of the top 10 starting pitchers in Cubs history,” Dempster said. “And by the time it’s all said and done, it might be a little more like the top five, who knows? Because you won the World Series too. You did the thing that is the ultimate goal.
“We can all have personal achievements, but what did it lead to? I had a really good career as a Cub. We had two playoff appearances that we got swept. So for the ultimate goal, it didn’t do anything. Kyle did all that good stuff plus in the ultimate goal, he was a big part of the reason why we win a World Series. That has to carry some serious weight.”
Serious, historic, significant weight like few others in franchise history.
“I can’t wait to have all those memories to look back on. It’s just been incredible,” Hendricks said. “I could never have imagined myself having this throughout my career so far, even at this point. I would have never imagined this.
“But I’m not ready for it to be done. At all.”
Gordon Wittenmyer is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
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