Oakland Athletics: What is Liam Hendriks’ upcoming free agent value?

Oakland Athletics reliever Liam Hendriks has enjoyed a breakout 2019 season. But what could his upcoming free agent value be when he hits the open market in 2020?

One of the major standouts from the Oakland Athletics bullpen this year has been the first-time All-Star, Liam Hendriks.

The Aussie has pitched to a sensational 1.60 ERA with 85 strikeouts in 62 innings all the while taking over the closer role for the team due to the struggles of last year’s big standout, Blake Treinen.

Hendriks is 30-years-old and becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2020 season (heading into an arbitration year after this season). The point being, Hendriks is still relatively young and could very well earn himself a nifty contract once he does hit the open market.

But why are we talking about him here? What’s so special about Liam Hendriks?

To answer those questions, we have to look at the trajectory of the relief pitcher market in the near future.

This past offseason, we saw the best closer in baseball, Craig Kimbrel, go unsigned. It wasn’t until almost the midway point of the season that he finally found a new home on the Northside of Chicago.

Why was the best closer in baseball still available so late in the season? Was it because he had struggled with his command towards the back half of 2018? Perhaps.

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Or better yet, was it indicative of a trend we’re going to start to see take shape in the handling of relief pitching from a front-office standpoint? That’s where a guy like Hendriks comes in.

If the Tampa Bay Rays taught us anything in 2018, it’s that the “specialist” in the game of baseball is starting to lose some of its value.

Why would a team offer up a contract in the hundreds of millions for a pitcher (Kimbrel or Aroldis Chapman for example) whose only job is to get three outs in the ninth inning? Why not spread your bullpen out more with “cheaper” options that could achieve the same goal as one closer?

This is why Hendriks provides such great value as he heads onto the open market in the very near future. Hendriks offers versatility in that he can be used as a closer (as we’re seeing now), but also as a middle relief, opener, or bulk relief.

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Heck, he could even be used for 2-3 innings to open (let’s say) a playoff game. Granted, that didn’t work out for the A’s last year, but (in opinion) that was a strong strategy to implement going into a one-game playoff.

The usage of pitchers nowadays is trending in the direction of the one-inning specialists losing value while the multi-inning relievers are starting to gain value.

Does this mean that players such as Liam Hendriks become the ones who get the massive contracts? Maybe, maybe not.

But it makes guys like Hendriks more valuable to a team and more likely to be worthy of that bigger contract as opposed to the ninth-inning shutdown closer, regardless of how dominant that closer is.

Maybe it won’t be Liam Hendriks himself, but (in opinion) pitchers of his makeup are going to start landing the flashier/lengthier contracts in the relief pitcher market rather than the Craig Kimbrels or Aroldis Chapmans.