The White Sox announced this evening that star closer Liam Hendriks has undergone Tommy John surgery. According to the club, he’ll require a 12-14 month recovery timeline.
Hendriks has been on the injured list since the second week of June with what the team initially called elbow inflammation. There’d been no prior indication surgery was under consideration. As of a couple weeks ago, the righty had been throwing simulated games. He apparently suffered a setback during that rehab work and will now miss the majority or all of next season.
It’s a disheartening blow. Hendriks’ quick return from an offseason non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis has been one of the best stories of the 2023 season. He announced his diagnosis in early January. Within roughly three and a half months, he’d completed chemotherapy and been declared cancer-free. He was remarkably back on a major league mound by May 29.
Certainly, the revelation he’d require elbow surgery pales in comparison to the life-threatening news he’d gotten (and overcome) just months before. Yet it’s an obviously tough development for his playing career. Hendriks turns 35 next February. There’s a good chance he’s unable to return to pitching until his age-36 campaign.
Between the late start to the season and the subsequent elbow injury, the three-time All-Star only made five MLB appearances this year. He was one of the top handful of relievers in the sport between 2019-22. Hendriks broke out late in his career with Oakland and maintained that elite performance for his first two seasons with the Sox. Over that four-year stretch, he posted a 2.26 ERA with an elite 38.8% strikeout rate across 239 innings.
With this revelation, it’s possible Hendriks has thrown his last pitch for Chicago. His three-year, $54MM free agent contract contained a $15MM club option for 2024. The deal came with a matching buyout figure — it was built in largely as an accounting measure to frontload the contract’s competitive balance tax hit — that’ll now come into play. If the Sox buy Hendriks out, they’ll be able to defer that payment over the next 10 years.
That’s the course of action they’ll almost certainly take. With Hendriks unlikely to pitch in 2024 regardless, there’s little reason for the Sox not to pay the $15MM in installments. Hendriks figures to return to free agency next winter, where he could field two-year offers from teams with an eye towards the 2025 campaign.
Brutal!
Wow, that is awful. Get well Liam.
This girl named Dev Said he looks like Bryan Reynolds once? I said Russle Bryant? And that’s about the time she walked away from queens, nobody likes you when your Contagious and sneeze, get that jerk the hell away from me!
Like the poor guy doesn’t have enough problems. Hurry back.
Liam is on that roller coaster of life. One day you’re one of the best closers in the game and then you have a year full of bad breaks. Bad things happen to good people.
TJS should be a cake walk.
I think I get this reference. I don’t understand it. But I get it. I think.
Tommy John Surgery lol
Why is that funny?
Just an in general lol. So many pitchers end up getting that surgery and nobody ever does anything differently to avoid it. It’s turned into a joke. Lol.
That is no joking matter sir!
Don’t think it’s a joke, Liam’s career could very well be done. He didn’t pitch much this year, won’t pitch next year. Think of guys could throw differently to avoid TJ they would
A General Lol as opposed to a Sergeant Lol or Lieutenant Lol
So know the chain of command of the Lols
Retired- Do you know anyone that’s battled cancer??
Ok… first of all, celebrities and sports stars don’t exactly have your grandma’s cancer…. there is no way ever he beats the cancer he had in the time frame that he did unless there is more modern medicine/ practices that are available to them because of $… did he lose his hair? Did he lose 40lbs? His ass walked back in AFTER chemo looking like he just left the mound ….secondly, he is 35 and LOADED… who cares about his arm? He will get surgery, he will still be rich and he will be fine Eben of he retires.. after beating “cancer” TJS should be a walk in the park…
Me.
It didn’t used to be like this. Most people are like you and only see what’s on the surface. It’s just easier. I know. It has a lot to do with trying to throw 200 mph. They aren’t pitching. They are destroying their arms.
You’re an A** Clown.
CardsFan: So you doubt Hendriks has “cancer”? Maybe it’s true that very wealthy people can get better care than “grandma”. I don’t know. I do know that you have to be cancer-free for five years before you’re cured. If his cancer comes back, his money doesn’t mean a whole lot, does it?
Sounds like you are bitter for some reason. I am an 11-year survivor of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I’m a grandfather not a celebrity, but fortunately had great insurance. I had chemo, lost some hair, and weight, But in some cases, it can recur while in other cases it is curable. I don’t know whether his was aggressive or not, which can help determine its eventual outcome.
It’s not a joke, but you do have a point on nobody changing anything to avoid it. Guys are tweaking mechanics to maximize spin and velo and going all out almost every pitch. The human body is not built to take that kind of stress. It also usually leaves pitchers in poor fielding position, opening them up to another injury possibility. Makes me wonder how a guy like Maddux would fare today.
I wonder about that myself. The game has gone so backward and crazy. Old timers have to see how it’s played now a days and wonder wth happened here?
This is… pretty offensive to all cancer survivors. Putting cancer in quotes is gross.
Retired guy – A$$!
LOL!
Maybe just for the fact that he just overcame cancer, we could do without the LOL? Just wondering.
It’s about the Tommy John Surgery. Not other things. Keep up.
So it’s funny that a guy who survived cancer and fought back to play again is now out for 12-18 months. Got it.
Once again it’s not about anything that he went through prior. It’s about the almost nonstop Tommy John Surgery crisis in baseball. You are the one who throws in other things. I didn’t think about the cancer. Please try to keep up. I’m keeping it as simple as I can just for you guys.
Yeah, keep digging your hole.. You’re ignorant for dropping an ‘LOL’… No need to keep explaining why you are ignorant to people. TJS is no laughing matter either, its a surgery that a person has to go through, they miss 12-18 months of their career, and may not be the same pitcher they were before.. Even though it may be thought of as routine now, its not a laughing matter especially if its an older pitcher.
You must be proud of yourself.
How about you keeping up on common courtesy? The guy has had a rough year. BTW….I’m keeping up just fine, thanks.
I have to deal with stupid people here so it’s one big fat LOL.
I am thanks.
Well they say ‘ignorance is bliss’, and notice that ‘Retired’ laughs out loud a LOT.
Ignorance is bliss isn’t it? Yeah,you know.
MLB needs to get involved with this new inflection
Wake up Manfart, how the heck is this happening to so many pitchers? someone getting a kick back? A baby is born, quick, get tommy john surgery.. Someone is burning the toast, anybody listening or smelling something?
It’s probably because they don’t exercise their other muscles enough and do too many of the same exercises. Like, if you hardly ever do anything strenuous with your right arm besides pitch and do related exercises, it makes sense that some of the muscles/ligaments/tendons might get overworked and prone to injury.
Also, these college kids that are drafted after having TJ surgery would never have played again before Frank Jobe came along.
How old are you guys? 12? Throughout baseball history so many pitchers careers ended very quickly because they blew their arms out. It was very common.
Now, do you get the importance of “Tommy John” in baseball history? It changed the sport and so many careers.
@boob Tommy John Surgery has been around for a number of years yes. At the same time do you mean to tell me you haven’t noticed a tremendous uptick in Tommy John Surgeries in the past 5 maybe 10 years? You really haven’t noticed this? How old are YOU? Elbow problems have been around since the beginning of pitchers and rotator cuffs were the big deal back in the day. Come on get a grip on reality.
Really? LOL? The guy just gets through leukemia and tears his UCL…At some point you have to ask yourself. Should I hit post comment? I get the keyboard warrior thing but FFS. Grow a pair and show some respect for people you don’t even know.
Once again it’s about the never ending Tommy John Surgeries. Everyone is getting it done and he just happens to be the latest. Please continue being stupid elsewhere.
Thanks jerkoff
Because that’s all you know. You are the jerkmaster.
Dang. Poor guy. One of my favorite people that isn’t on my favorite team.
I think most of us feel the same way. After battling cancer, you just want the guy to have a strong finish to his career.
Karma must be real
It is. However, your comment shows you’re not well versed in how it operates.
deGrom Texas Ranger is a real class act.
He is. Always been a good guy on here.
Ouch. This season and next.
The Sox will decline his option now deferring the $15 million Liam is owed.
It’s an option with a 15 million dollar buyout it’s rather complicating. Very possible they don’t exercise the opt out and he comes back late in 2024 and pitches for the White Sox or someone else.
Nobody would take on that deal unless the Sox ate all the money. As commonplace as TJS is, it’s still not a sure thing a pitcher comes back all the way from it. I think there’s less than a 5% chance they pick up that option. Sucks for him, the team, and all his fans, whether they’re also Sox fans or not.
You don’t get it. The buyout is the same amount as the salary is. The only benefit to exercising the buyout is the White Sox can then spread the money out over multiple years. It roughly will save them a couple million.
I do get it, but the Sox, despite what they may tell themselves, aren’t competing next year. They’d be picking up his deal not knowing at all whether he’d be able to pitch in ’24. Better to take the sure thing, imo, which as you say is a couple million. On a non-contending team, there’s literally no reason to have an elite closer, and he’s untradeable until he can prove that he’s come all the way back from this. I’d rather the Sox just took the financial savings and parted ways. Sucks if it ends that way, but I don’t see the real benefit in keeping him because I don’t see any realistic path to contention next year for them.
2 million bucks is worth it to take a chance he might be ready late in the year even if it isn’t for the White Sox. With your logic they would sell off their entire team because they aren’t contenders.
By then, the trade deadline will have passed. Teams won’t be able to evaluate his health and skill level in time to offer anything for him, and it’s still a big if on whether he’d be ready at all next year.
He doesn’t have to be ready to play by the trade deadline.
Rushed returning imo. His rebaditation wasn’t enough to gain his former fitness and strength.
Cleveland: Some people thought the same thing. But it’s difficult to know how much time between when he found out he was cancer free and his return. I know he pitched something like six rehab games before returning to the formerly major league team. Whatever the case, it seems like it’s just a cruel coincidence.
My uncle had non-hodgkins last year and although he is much older, the treatments were months of chemo, and it is poisoning your body. The strength is competely depleted by the end. So while anyone can ramp up and start the typical rehab, the muscle loss is significant. With Hendriks’ bigger body, the absence of strength could easily be detrimental, adding significantly more strain to his arm while also increasing mechnical misfits. These easily could cause the fine turned engine that is the elbow to bust.
Cleveland steel engines: I heard recently that they now have nanobots as thin as a human hair. They can program the nanobots and put medicine in it, then send it to the exact spot that the cancer is. That way the medicine only reaches the cancer. It doesn’t destroy any other cells and doesn’t tear down the body.
Health sciences are inventive. They are great (if you don’t count all the failure and animal abuses).
You might well be right, but Liam was throwing bullpens while undergoing the chemo. He was doing all he could to keep in shape. In a way, it’s a really triumphant year for him, but it’s also an absolutely rotten year.
I agree that the highs and lows have been strong. As for throwing with chemo: it’s about the loss of muscle even if it was relative. A ballplayer can have one tiny thing off and it could mean the whole world. Just not being at peak fitness going into the season would introduce risks. Hendriks was deeply immersed in this situation no matter how you look at it. We say it manifest itself with the struggles in the minor league rehabs but more importantly the velo never reached where he was last season. A lot of that decrease is inefficiency in mechanics, not lower effort. It’s a big reason why super high velo guys or guys generally throwing nearly max effort experience higher rates of injury.
That so sucks. He works hard to come back from cancer and beats it and now TJS.
I swear to the gods the White Sox get a kick back for every pitcher the either diagnose with TJ, or draft who previously had TJ…
Well they do get a kickback of sorts on drafted pitchers. No way some of these guys last until the 2nd and 3rd round if they didn’t have TJS that made them miss a season (or some other ailment, like Schultz’ mononucleosis). They get 1st round talent at 2nd round prices.
And then fail to develop said talent to the point that it seems like a 7th round talent.
Chemo and radiation take its toll on the body’s structures and strength. With the number of TJ surgeries this season ( thanks to Manfred and the pitch clock ) Hendriks did not have the odds in his favor. He beat cancer though so he does have his life ahead of him.
The increase in TJS happened long before the implementation of the pitch clock. It likely has more to do with the strain put on players arms from pitching at high velocities from a super early age nowadays along with the rise of year round baseball with summer and fall leagues for kids.
4thefences: I agree that the pitch clock is totally unnecessary. Since Liam missed ST, he probably wasn’t used to manfred’s latest disaster. Pitchers need a minute or two to decide what pitch they’re going to throw, whether they”re going to throw it inside or out, etc. Baseball is the thinking man’s game. The pitcher and batter guessing what the other will do is at the center of that. Who cares if that process, a part of the game for over 100 years, makes games go three hours? If you’ve set aside time to watch a game, then an extra hour won’t disrupt anyone’s day.
The spooky pitch clock is under your bed! Watch out!
lmao
PItchers used to get each pitch off this quickly regularly before the last 15 years and they weren’t all having TJS. You sound foolish
Cy Young threw 749 complete games at a time when everyone played fast. It’s a max effort thing not a pitch clock thing.
Damn!
Dang. All the best big Aussie. You are a face of courage and resilience, with all that you have already encountered and conquered. Looking forward to seeing you back on the bump when you are ready.
What a crazy year he’s had. Hope he has a speedy recovery.
Brutal darn year for the man. Hoping he comes back strong in 2025.
That sucks.
Man, that guy can’t win. But unfortunately the poster who said cancer treatment wears a body down is on point. Probably didn’t help at least.
Wtf you mean he can’t win???? 54 million in a contract, apparently beat cancer in like 3 months…. ridiculous take…
Dude had to go through cancer and now has to fo through a year plus rehab from Tommy John surgery. Not ridiculous at all but rather concern for what a fellow human being has to go through.
Hard to understand in a Twitter short attention span world of those who could care less about anyone else, I’m sure.
Rooting for the guy to come back if decides to. Liam and his wife have been so good to Chicago charities and the fans. Quality guy who performed exceptionally when he was healthy.
Bad break for Liam to say the least, but given that the treatments take a major toll on the body, and the drive he had to get back, its not surprising, just unfortunate. Hope he gets through the TJS and comes back like the player he was before (as I doubt he will retire after this diagnosis). Hoping he comes back strong, though it sucks that he will likely not be on the White Sox when he does (though never say never).
I’d say the contract still wasn’t that bad. 2 really great years.
I’d argue that this season has been a bigger nightmare for the White Sox than any other in recent memory. Sure, our expectations were obviously tempered coming off of 2022 and the horror that was Tony La Russa’s second go at managing the Sox but I don’t know anybody who follows this team closely that saw this awful of a season coming.
In each of the last two or three seasons, there was still reason to ultimately be optimistic at certain points of the season but this season has been nothing but misery followed by even more misery.
And of course, now this… Liam Hendricks is one of my absolute favorites to ever suit up for us and it’s a shame that this is how his tenure as a member of the White Sox will come to an end.
It’s awful how things have been going for Liam but one thing that’s becoming a bit comical is that the White Sox can’t have nice things.
At this point in his career and life, this may be it for him.
Let’s hope not, bruv! Come back strong Liam!!
TJ surgery is a walk in the park compared to what he came back from. That said, tough break for Liam
At the very least, I don’t know of anyone who’s died from TJS, so he’s got that going for him.
Strange that Hendricks had a small workload and now needs tjs. Even more weird is the dr performing the procedure is the dr for an opposing team
Citizen 1: I can see it now: Hendriks is wheeled into the OR. The surgeon takes off his mask and his baseball cap and declares: “I’m sorry. I cannot operate on this man. He does not play for my team.” And to think of all the pitchers from all around bb with torn UCLs that were operated on by the Dodger’s doctors and were able to continue their careers. As I recall, they both received lifetime bans from ever performing TJS again.
He’ll find a way to get in the broadcast booth as much as possible during next year since dude’s ego is rampant..
baseballteam: Based on what? A pro athlete has to have an ego, or self-confidence, to play their sport at the highest level. Apparently you have a problem with that.
Kinda says it all about the Sox right now… everything’s just going wrong.
Praying for you Liam. You came back from a lot worse than this. Hope you Come back better than ever
The baseball gods hate this man
That retired dip$hit was an easy mute.
Raise the pitching mound will put less stress on the arm. Can use the downward force and legs more to help the arm imo
I’m sure Liam had all the advise of why he should take more time in his return..the guy is a competitor, has beaten cancer so far and probably in his heart wanted to help his team and show people that cancer sucks but people do beat it. I’d like to see him be the face of stand up to cancer for MLB if he’s unable to play in the future.
You have to root hard for this guy . He has been to hell and back. I love his intensity and work ethic
The intensity that Hendriks brought to the South Side, has been severely missed on the filed this season. Between him being out beating cancer/injured and losing Abreu to the Astros, the Sox seem to have such an identity crisis.
I know the Sox will likely buyout his contract next year to amortize the buyout over time, but I wish to see him involved with the Sox in some way. He has done a lot for the team off the field that will be certainly missed. I hope he is able to come back from this surgery with some team, as he is one of the more fun guys to watch come out of the pen.
My favorite White Sox player, wish him a speedy recovery and good luck
oh man! likely his last throw in mlb. over 51M in career earnings. aint a bad career if it is. Not bad for a guy from Perth to mlb and then beat cancer. good story and good guy.