Liam Hendriks is calling it a career after 14 big league seasons, and he did it in the same style that defined a lot of his public persona: blunt, funny, and completely unafraid to poke fun at himself.
The 37-year-old reliever announced his retirement in an Instagram post that thanked the people around him - including fans, family, past opponents, and his agent - while also serving up a few trademark one-liners. Hendriks gave “a huge thank you to my wife for always believing in me, which was honestly a terrifying display of delusion on her part,” and singled out Salvador Perez, “who I am completely convinced [treated] my heater like a light afternoon snack.”
He also looked ahead to life after baseball with the kind of dry humor that made the post land: “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 leaves the game with a resume that stands out in Australian baseball history and across the major leagues. He won AL Reliever of the Year honors in both 2020 and 2021, picked up down-ballot Cy Young Award votes in those seasons, and earned three All-Star selections.
Among Australians in MLB, only a few dozen have made it to the majors, and Hendriks is one of just four to reach an All-Star Game, alongside Dave Nilsson, Grant Balfour, and Travis Bazzana. He’s the only one of that group with multiple All-Star nods.
His path to that level took time. Signed by the Twins as an international free agent in 2007, Hendriks debuted in Minnesota in 2011, but the early years were rough. From 2011-14, he logged 188 2/3 innings over 39 games, 34 of them starts, and posted a 5.92 ERA while bouncing through three teams and spending time with a couple of others without appearing on their active rosters.
Everything changed when he moved to the bullpen full time in 2015. That season, he threw 64 2/3 innings for Toronto and put up a 2.92 ERA with a 27.2% strikeout rate and 4.2% walk rate, helping the Blue Jays win the AL East. Even after that breakout, Toronto traded him to Oakland for Jesse Chavez, a move that didn’t work out for the Jays because Chavez struggled and was flipped again at the 2016 trade deadline.
Hendriks spent five seasons with the Athletics and had his share of twists there too. Oakland designated him for assignment and outrighted him during the 2018 season, but he got back on track after returning to the active roster in September 2018.
From there, he rediscovered the form he’d shown in 2015 and then some. Over 110 1/3 innings in 2019-20, he posted a 1.79 ERA, a 5.7% walk rate, and a massive 38K%, while taking over as closer partway through 2019.
That run set him up for a major payday. In January 2021, Hendriks signed what was technically a three-year, $54MM deal with the White Sox, plus a fourth-year club option worth $15MM and a matching buyout. The first two years in Chicago were excellent, and he was named an AL All-Star twice during that stretch.
Then came the health battles that turned his career into something much bigger than baseball. In January 2023, Hendriks was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
After more than three months of chemotherapy, he got a cancer-free diagnosis and returned to the White Sox mound by the end of May. He was later named AL Comeback Player of the Year, though he pitched in only five games that season after another problem surfaced.
Hendriks underwent Tommy John surgery in August 2023, and he missed all of 2024 while working back from that operation and later arm issues.
The White Sox declined his club option for 2024, and Hendriks moved on to Boston on a backloaded two-year deal worth $10MM in guaranteed money, with a mutual option for 2026. But his Red Sox stint never really got going. He made only five appearances in 2025, allowing 6.59 ERA ball over 13 2/3 innings, and those ended up being his final games in the majors.
Exactly a year ago today, Hendriks underwent ulnar nerve transposition surgery on his right elbow. He later signed minor league deals with both the Twins and Cubs in 2026, but his only game action after that came in five appearances in the Cubs’ farm system.
In the end, the elbow gave out on the idea of a comeback. Hendriks put it plainly in his post: “m y 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.”
He retires with a 3.88 ERA, 26.7% strikeout rate, and 6.0% walk rate across 663 2/3 innings and 490 games with the Twins, Royals, Blue Jays, A’s, White Sox, and Red Sox. As a reliever, he posted a 3.16 ERA, though that number is a little misleading because some of his Athletics appearances came as an opener.
Beyond the numbers, Hendriks was also a constant presence in causes bigger than the game. He was nominated seven times for the Roberto Clemente Award during his career, reflecting his work as an advocate for cancer and poverty.
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