The Cubs’ swing back through Chicago suddenly feels a lot more interesting with Liam Hendriks in the picture. They’ve got a crosstown set on the South Side, then a return to Wrigley, all while a former White Sox All-Star closer is trying to pitch his way into the Cubs’ bullpen and maybe rewrite the late-inning script on the North Side.
It’s hard to imagine a more emotionally layered scenario for Hendriks than jogging in from the bullpen at Guaranteed Rate Field wearing Cubbie blue. This is the same mound where he piled up saves and All-Star nods for the White Sox from 2021 through 2023, including a 38-save season in 2021 that briefly made him the most feared ninth-inning arm in the American League. Now, a couple of years, a cancer battle, Tommy John surgery, and a detour through Boston and Minnesota later, he’s trying to prove there’s still one more act left in that right arm.
The deal itself tells you exactly how Jed Hoyer thinks about pitching. The Cubs signed Hendriks to a minor league contract, a classic low-cost, low-risk move with potentially huge upside if he even gets close to his White Sox form. For a front office that prefers value plays in the bullpen over big multi-year reliever contracts, this is right in their wheelhouse. If it works, you’ve added a proven closer to a contending team without touching the top of the farm system or the very top of the payroll.
There’s also something very Chicago baseball about this particular signing. Hendriks isn’t just another veteran reliever; he’s a guy who was a centerpiece for the White Sox during their last push, racking up 76 saves on the South Side and becoming a fan favorite for his intensity as much as his numbers. Now the Cubs are the organization offering him a platform to come back, and that sets up a fascinating dynamic for a city series that already thrives on shared geography and divided allegiances.
For Hendriks, this stretch is about more than revenge games or awkward ovations. His story over the last few years has been about resilience. Recovering from stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis after the 2022 season, a triumphant return in 2023, then the setback of Tommy John surgery that cost him almost all of 2024. Now he’s ready to pitch on a major league mound again and with the Cubs he’ll have squeeze just about every bit of energy a pitcher can have into one comeback.
Fans can almost picture it. The Cubs roll into the South Side needing a couple of wins to keep their first place spot in the division, and the bullpen door swings open for a guy Sox fans remember as their own. The same fastball, the same fire, the same primal yell after a big strikeout. On one side, there’s the sting of seeing him in a rival’s uniform; on the other, a grudging respect that the North Siders had the vision to take the chance.
And that’s where Hoyer starts to feel less like a standard-issue executive and more like an artist working with roster pieces. He fills needs by searching in every nook and cranny of the market for the right brushstroke — sometimes that’s a rising arm in his own system, sometimes it’s a buy-low starter via trade, and sometimes it’s a former White Sox closer coming off surgery on a minor league deal. The canvas is the 26-man roster, and he’s forever blending new talent with familiar faces from Chicago’s recent baseball past.
You can see that philosophy across the diamond. The Cubs have surrounded their young core with established names and reclamation projects, and Hendriks fits neatly into that second bucket. Hoyer has talked openly about using free agency and minor league deals to layer pitching depth, knowing bullpens are as volatile as any unit in the sport. When it clicks, it looks like genius; when it doesn’t, it looks like a scatter of brushstrokes that didn’t quite come together — but he’s not afraid of either outcome.
There’s also something poetic about the Cubs and White Sox swapping pieces of each other’s history. By signing someone like Hendriks the Cubs aren’t just signing a reliever; they’re importing a chunk of recent Sox identity, right down to the late-inning swagger and the memory of all those ninth-inning Game Over moments on the South Side. It blurs the lines in a rivalry that’s always been more about bragging rights and city pride than divisional consequences.
Here’s the thing, folks: When the Cubs are back at Wrigley next week, the conversation on the North Side is likely to shift be What does this bullpen look like if Hendricks comes back at full strength? If the stuff is there and the health cooperates, you could suddenly be looking at a relief corps with a proven closer option to pair with the younger arms Hoyer and his staff have been grooming. That’s the kind of quiet move in May that can end up swinging games in August.
With that . . . As the Cubs return to Chicago for a weekend set on the South Side then back to Wrigley, the subplot is clear; this isn’t just another city series, and it’s not just another flyer on an aging reliever. It’s a test of whether a front office that prides itself on creativity and patience can again turn a well-timed, well-targeted signing into real on-field value. Hendriks knows what it’s like to own the ninth inning in Chicago. Now the question is whether he can do it again — this time with a different fan base singing his name.
If you cannot play with them, then root for them!