Wednesday, September 30, 2026 — one of baseball’s most resilient pitchers says his arm has finally made the decision for him.
Liam Hendriks announced his retirement on Tuesday night in an Instagram post. The 37-year-old right-hander spent 14 seasons in the majors, and he explained the decision with characteristic humor: his arm, he wrote, has told him in no uncertain terms that it has “exactly zero fastballs left in it.”
The Long Road to Closer
Hendriks’ career is one of the great reinventions of his era. He signed with the Twins out of Australia in 2007 and debuted in 2011, but he struggled as a starter, posting a 5.92 ERA from 2011 to 2014.
The move to the bullpen in Toronto in 2015 changed everything. He posted a 2.92 ERA that year and was then traded to Oakland for Jesse Chavez. By 2019 he was the A’s closer, and over 2019 and 2020 he put up a 1.79 ERA.
He won back-to-back AL Reliever of the Year awards in 2020 and 2021, received Cy Young votes in both seasons and became a three-time All-Star — the most of any Australian-born player. In January 2021 he signed a three-year, $54 million deal with the White Sox, where he became one of the game’s most dominant and colorful closers.
The Comeback That Defined Him
In January 2023, Hendriks was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After more than three months of chemotherapy, he was declared cancer-free and was back on a major league mound by the end of May. He won AL Comeback Player of the Year.
The setbacks didn’t stop. He had Tommy John surgery in August 2023 and missed all of 2024. He signed with Boston for 2025 but pitched just 13⅔ innings before ulnar nerve transposition surgery that September. This year, he appeared in only five games, all in the Cubs’ minor league system.
Beyond the Numbers
He finishes with a 3.88 ERA over 663⅔ innings in 490 games, and a 3.16 ERA as a reliever. But his impact went well beyond his stat line. Hendriks was nominated for the Roberto Clemente Award seven times, a reflection of his work in the community and his advocacy for cancer patients after his own diagnosis.
The Read
Few players have been counted out as often as Liam Hendriks, and few have answered back so many times. He leaves the game as a two-time Reliever of the Year, a cancer survivor and one of the most recognizable personalities of his generation. That is quite a career for a pitcher who once couldn’t hold a rotation spot.
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