In a very amusing and self-deprecating post on his Instagram page, veteran reliever Liam Hendriks has announced his retirement after 14 big league seasons. The 37-year-old Hendriks cited the fans, his family (“a huge thank you to my wife for always believing in me, which was honestly a terrifying display of delusion on her part“), past rivals like Salvador Perez (“who I am completely convinced [treated] my heater like a light afternoon snack“), his “miracle worker” of an agent, and many others who played a role in his career.
“As for what’s next: My immediate retirement plans include testing whether my elbow can survive holding onto the leash when my dog sees a rabbit, and choosing a new hobby where being single-handedly responsible for losing a game doesn’t lead to ESPN SportsCenter breaking down my psychological collapse in slow motion for the next 24 hours. Thanks for the ride. It’s been an absolute blast.”
Hendriks’ impressive resume is highlighted by back-to-back AL Reliever Of The Year awards in 2020 and 2021, and he also received down-ballot Cy Young Award votes in those two standout seasons. One of only a few dozen Australians to play in Major League Baseball, Hendriks is one of just four Aussies (along with Dave Nilsson, Grant Balfour, and Travis Bazzana) to make an All-Star Game, and Hendriks is the only one of that group to earn All-Star recognition multiple times, receiving three nods for the Midsummer Classic.
Signing with the Twins as an international free agent in 2007, Hendriks made his MLB debut with Minnesota in 2011 but it took him a while to make his mark in the Show. Over 188 2/3 innings and 39 games (34 of them starts) over the 2011-14 seasons, the right-hander struggled to a 5.92 ERA for three different teams, plus he bounced around to a couple of other clubs without any time on their active rosters.
A move to full-time bullpen work in 2015 reshaped Hendriks’ career. He posted a 2.92 ERA, 27.2% strikeout rate, and 4.2% walk rate over 64 2/3 innings out of the Blue Jays’ bullpen, and played a major role in Toronto’s AL East title. Despite this success, the Jays dealt Hendriks to the Athletics after the season for a more experienced pitcher in Jesse Chavez, in a deal that backfired for Toronto since Chavez didn’t pitch well and was flipped again at the 2016 trade deadline.
Hendriks spent the next five years in Oakland and had some ups and downs, as the A’s designated for assignment and outrighted him midway through the 2018 campaign. Still, Hendriks got himself on track after returning to the active roster in September 2018 and then rediscovered his 2015 form over the next two years. Hendriks posted a 1.79 ERA, 5.7% walk rate, and a whopping 38K% over 110 1/3 frames for the A’s in 2019-20, and he was moved into the closer’s job partway through the 2019 campaign.
Now established as a stopper, Hendriks cashed in with what was technically a three-year, $54MM free agent deal with the White Sox in January 2021, with a fourth year “club option” worth $15MM, same as the buyout. The first two years of the deal went swimmingly, as Hendriks continued to deliver elite numbers and was twice named to the AL All-Star team.
Hendriks’ baseball career became secondary in January 2023, when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Thankfully, three-plus months of chemotherapy treatments resulted in a cancer-free diagnosis, and Hendriks was able to return to Chicago’s mound by the end of May.
This return led Hendriks to be awarded AL Comeback Player of the Year honors at season’s end, but he pitched in only five games in 2023 once another health issue emerged. Hendriks underwent Tommy John surgery that August, and he ended up missing the entire 2024 campaign due to both the TJ rehab progress that some late-season arm issues that scuttled any hopes of a return.
Once the White Sox declined their club option on Hendriks for 2024, he changed his Sox by signing with Boston on a backloaded two-year contract worth $10MM in guaranteed money, plus a mutual option for 2026. The 13 2/3 innings of 6.59 ERA ball Hendriks posted in 2025 ended up being his only appearances in a Red Sox uniform, and his final 14 games in the majors It was exactly a year ago today that Hendriks underwent an ulnar nerve transposition surgery on his right elbow, and though he signed minor league deals with both the Twins and Cubs in 2026, his only on-field action was five games in the Cubs’ farm system.
In the wake of these continued elbow issues, Hendriks has decided to hang up his glove. Or, as he put it in colorful terms on Instagram, “my arm has told me in no uncertain terms that it has exactly zero fastballs left in it, and my elbow has made it clear that throwing anything harder than a light breeze now requires a three-day recovery window.”
Hendriks retires with a career 3.88 ERA, 26.7% strikeout rate, and 6.0% walk rate over 663 2/3 innings and 490 games with the Twins, Royals, Blue Jays, A’s, White Sox, and Red Sox. He has a 3.16 ERA as a reliever, though that number is a little misleading as Hendriks made several “starts” with the Athletics as an opener. Beyond just his production on the field, Hendriks was nominated seven times for the Roberto Clemente Award over the course of his career, as he has been a tireless advocate for the fights against cancer and poverty.
We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Hendriks on a tremendous career, and we wish him the best in plenty of healthy dog-walks and other future endeavors.
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