The Cubs agreed to a minor league contract with Liam Hendriks on May 13, 2026, giving the 37-year-old right-hander another chance to work back toward the majors after his release from the Twins.
Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic reported the agreement. Hendriks had been in Minnesota’s spring training camp, where he gave up three runs in seven innings and matched his five walks with five strikeouts before the Twins told him he would not make the roster and granted his release. He had been a free agent since then.
The signing offers Chicago a low-cost look at a pitcher whose résumé once put him among baseball’s most effective late-inning arms. From 2019 to 2022 with the Athletics and White Sox, Hendriks threw 239 innings with a 2.26 ERA, a 38.8% strikeout rate and a 5.1% walk rate. That stretch was interrupted after a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, followed by chemotherapy treatment and a return to the mound. After that, he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and needed Tommy John surgery.
Hendriks later signed a two-year deal with the Red Sox covering 2024 and 2025, planning to rehab in the first season and join Boston’s bullpen in the second. Instead, he pitched 13 2/3 innings last season with a 6.59 ERA, a sharp drop from the peak years that made him a fixture at the back of games for Oakland and Chicago.
His spring with Minnesota showed some of the same uncertainty. Hendriks’ fastball sat at 93.9 mph, well below the 97-98 mph range he once averaged, and the Twins decided to move on after he failed to secure a roster spot. For the Cubs, the timing mattered. Chicago had already lost right-hander Porter Hodge for the season to UCL surgery, and relievers Hunter Harvey, Riley Martin and Caleb Thielbar were also on the injured list.
The expectation is that Hendriks will need time to build back up before moving on to Triple-A Iowa. That makes this a patient play rather than an immediate fix, but it also gives the Cubs a chance to see whether a pitcher who has already fought back from cancer and elbow surgery has one more rebound left in him.
