Chicago Cubs: Can Kyle Hendricks Win the Cy Young?

The Chicago Cubs had a Cy Young winner last season, Jake Arrieta. Does their sneaky good bottom of the rotation pitcher, Kyle Hendricks, have a chance to win the Cy Young this season?

In an odd year in both leagues where the top pitchers typically expected to contend for the Cy Young Award are either injured or under-performing, the award is somewhat up for grabs. That doesn’t mean, however, that the Cy Young will go to a pitcher that hasn’t been very, very good during the 2016 season. In the National League the big names at the top are Clayton Kershaw, who has rightfully dropped tremendously in the rankings since he first went on the disabled list; Madison Bumgarner, who has been very good this season; Jose Fernandez, who hasn’t pitched very many innings but has struck out a ton of batters; and Stephen Strasburg, who has wins and ERA on his side along with impressive strikeout numbers.

Despite maybe not being the names we expected to compete for the Cy Young this season (Arrieta, Kershaw, Greinke from last year come to mind), those are all big name pitchers. Going back in time and telling your friend that Stephen Strasburg wins the 2016 Cy Young wouldn’t entirely shock them if they’re a baseball fan in any sense of the word. There is one name, however, that would probably shock your friend to no end. That name is Kyle Hendricks.

Not only is Hendricks not a household name, he also isn’t even the third-best known pitcher in the Cubs rotation. With Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and John Lackey on the staff, Kyle Hendricks was certainly not even expected to be the best possible Cy Young contender on his team.

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Because of this, Kyle Hendricks’ name being involved in real Cy Young discussions shocks almost everyone in the baseball world, except for Cubs fans and writers. If you don’t believe me, go read some of Rian Watt’s work over at the Baseball Prospectus local site BP Wrigleyville where he has written about Hendricks a whole lot in the past year (all of it is very good, including a story about learning his best pitch, the changeup). Despite Cubs writers insisting that what they have seen from Hendricks since 2014, and even before that during his time in the minor leagues, makes this season from the wiry-framed hurler not all that surprising, there have been plenty of doubters.

Pitchers like Jake Arrieta, Stephen Strasburg and Clayton Kershaw are able to dominate their competition because they have an overpowering fastball paired with at least one other very good pitch. Kyle Hendricks doesn’t have an overpowering fastball; in fact, his fastball is averaging only 88.77 mph this season. Because he doesn’t have that dominating fastball, Hendricks has had to rely on his other pitches to help him out, but more importantly he has had to learn the mental aspect of being a pitcher.

As a Dartmouth graduate, Hendricks has already earned the reputation of being a “cerebral pitcher,” and he has even been given the nickname “the Professor.” Hendricks has a very good knowledge of how to attack hitters, but he also understands the importance of not over-thinking during a game:

“He [Brad Holman] was probably my first pitching coach that I connected with. We got to the point where were talking about the game in the dugout, you know, during the game, just trying to learn how to pitch different guys in different situations. I just tried to kick it into gear [after that]. I think you can over-analyze things and overthink things, but as far as understanding situations in the game, or how to attack a guy, I don’t think you can think too much about that.” -Kyle Hendricks (source)

Not only does Hendricks have a great understanding of baseball and how to go after hitters, he also has the ability to know when to make adjustments. In looking at Hendricks’ usage stats, some things stand out as ways he has adjusted since 2014 to improve his game. In 2014 and 2015 Hendricks hardly used a four seam fastball at all (6.47 percent and 7.74 percent respectively), but in 2016 he has used the pitch 19.08 percent of the time.

In 2014 Hendricks used his sinker over 50 percent of the time (53.67 percent), which made it by far his most used pitch; in the two seasons since, Hendricks has slowly used the pitch less, and his usage is now down to 48.21 percent on the pitch. His sinker has about the same velocity as his four seam fastball, so mixing those two pitches surely makes hitters either swing and miss or hit ground balls. The proof of this is that Hendricks’ ground ball percentage on balls in play has increased in 2016 against both his four seam fastball and his sinker.

While I won’t go into more of the obvious adjustments that Hendricks has been wise enough to make, like using his changeup more and his curveball less, it is clear that he has been able to change his game when it is needed.

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How does this all relate to the season that Hendricks is having? And how does that relate to him suddenly being involved in Cy Young talks?

Well, the changes that Hendricks has made in 2016 combined with having one of the best defenses in the league behind him have led to Hendricks suppressing runs like nobody else in the league has been able to do. The only player with a lower ERA in Major League Baseball is Clayton Kershaw, who hasn’t pitched in over a month because of an injury. Hendricks’ ability to limit runs like he has in 2016 shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who has been paying attention. In that regard, Hendricks has always been a very good pitcher; his ability to over-match a hitter, especially in the first two times through the order, is among the best in the league.

Aside from ERA, there isn’t a whole lot that Kyle Hendricks does better than his competition, however. Hendricks has his highest walk rate of his major league career, and his strikeout rate (21.2 percent) is both low in terms of the best in the league and lower than he posted in 2015 (22.6 percent). In terms of fWAR, Hendricks’ 2.9 doesn’t even rank in the top 10 in the National League with all of the aforementioned pitchers (Strasburg, Bumgarner and Fernandez) ranking above him.

The argument could be made that a good portion of Cy Young voters don’t pay a whole lot of attention to more advanced statistics like fWAR and FIP that Hendricks doesn’t excel at this season; however, even in some of the more commonly used statistics Hendricks falls behind the competition.

If wins tickle a voter’s fancy, Stephen Strasburg stands out with his 15-2 record while still holding a very good 2.80 ERA. If raw strikeouts (or even strikeout rate, for that matter) mean a lot to a voter, Jose Fernandez and his 198 strikeouts (35.7 percent rate) will be attractive. Even if a voter is going to base his or her vote mainly on ERA, the one stat that Hendricks excels at, Madison Bumgarner is sitting only 0.03 above Hendricks’ number while also dominating in other areas.

Add onto this that Hendricks isn’t the innings-eating monster that we typically see dominate well enough to win a Cy Young Award. Last year the Cy Young winner, Jake Arrieta, pitched more innings than he ever had in his career during a great season in which he went seven innings or more 18 times out of his 33 starts and threw four complete games. Clayton Kershaw in 2014 was very similar to Arrieta last season, throwing 7.0+ innings in 22 out of 27 games started with six complete games. Kershaw even threw 17 straight starts in which he went seven innings or more at one point that season.

How does this relate to Kyle Hendricks winning the Cy Young? Hendricks has only four starts this season (out of 21 games started) in which he has pitched more than seven innings, half of those coming this past week when Hendricks was the NL Player of the Week.

Hendricks simply doesn’t have the ace capability to go far into games like most Cy Young winners have. That doesn’t discount the value he has for the Cubs as a middle-to-bottom of the rotation starter with great run prevention, but it probably means that he won’t win the Cy Young.

What this comes down to is that winning the Cy Young is incredibly difficult, and almost always goes to a player considered not only the ace of their own staff but also an “ace” throughout all of baseball. Since 2000, almost every pitcher that has won the award had already been recognized as one of the best pitchers in the league during the surrounding years. Does this mean that voters have a small bias toward the pitchers they already know and recognize as top of the league? Possibly.

But the takeaway I think we can make is that the Cy Young is not easily won by a pretty good pitcher having his best season; it is won by great pitchers having incredible seasons. Especially when we are in the midst of one of the best pitching eras of all time (some proof here), the chances of a decent pitcher having a good year in only one aspect amidst some of the best pitchers in the league also having great seasons winning a Cy Young is slim to say the least.

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Kyle Hendricks not winning the Cy Young does not mean, however, that this season is bad or that fans shouldn’t enjoy it. Watching a pitcher like Jose Fernandez, who is electric on the mound and gets swings and misses, can be incredibly fun. Watching a pitcher like Hendricks mysteriously mow through hitters can be just as fun as a fan. In a baseball world where we have become obsessed with high velocity, a pitcher like Kyle Hendricks limiting teams to about two runs a game is different and refreshing to watch.

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