After pitching in only 14 games over the course of a two-year contract with the Red Sox, reliever Liam Hendriks — as expected — will be a free agent again this winter.
The Red Sox declined their end of Hendriks’ $12 million mutual option Tuesday, according to a baseball source, and will pay him a $2 million buyout. He will officially become a free agent Wednesday.
Hendriks was signed in February 2024 as the Red Sox took a gamble that he’d fully recover from Tommy John surgery in time to become a major contributor — and potentially the team’s closer — in 2025. He got into rehab outings late in 2024 but a setback with his elbow kept him from pitching in the majors that season. He competed for the ninth inning role in spring training this past year but lost out to Aroldis Chapman, then landed on the injured list to start the year with a nerve issue in his throwing arm.
Hendriks made his long-awaited Red Sox debut on April 20, then struggled in 14 outings (6.59 ERA) before being placed on the IL with a hip issue at the end of May. That injury, originally diagnosed as hernia-related, was a strain in his abdominal side wall. While pushing to return from that injury late in the season, he felt a recurrence of forearm tightness. That led to surgery — a “right elbow ulnar nerve transposition with posterior interosseous nerve release” — on September 29. Hendriks will likely push to be ready for Opening Day with a club but his timetable for a healthy return isn’t known.
Hendriks, who turns 37 in February, is a three-time All-Star but has logged just 18 ⅔ innings over the last three seasons. The Australia native, who beat stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma late in 2022, said he plans on continuing to pitch in 2026.
“Very much so,”said Hendriks when asked if he planned to keep pitching on September 13. “I got a new elbow for a reason. If I wasn’t going to continue playing, I probably wouldn’t have gone through that whole process.
“There’s definitely a lot of desire left for me to get back out there because I really feel like I haven’t come back, even since the cancer journey.”
The Red Sox also declined Lucas Giolito’s mutual option, making him a free agent, and watched Alex Bregman opt out of his deal. Trevor Story will remain with the club after declining to exercise his opt-out.
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