Twins reliever Liam Hendriks breaks down his old scouting report, changes as pitcher

FORT MYERS, FLA. – When a reporter approached Liam Hendriks with one of his earliest scouting reports, the veteran relief pitcher offered a prediction about what it would say.

“I’m assuming there is a little bit of short motion with a quick arm, 88-92 mph, with a little bit of arm side run,” Hendriks said. “Good changeup. Breaking ball needs some work. Slider can play at times. Curveball when located is good. Athletic body. Pitchability is good, concerns about stuff in zone.”

Hendriks was on the right track. Below is a conversation about his reactions to his 2011 Baseball America scouting report, one year before he made his major league debut, and how he’s changed as a pitcher:

Hendriks’ father played in Australian Rules Football and Hendriks also played the sport before the Twins signed him for $170,000 in 2007.

“I had a good little bit that I was playing baseball as a side gig to football the entire time until probably 16, when I really had to make a choice because we had two tournaments at the same time,” Hendriks said. “At that point, I stuck with baseball. Baseball, if you get to a certain point, it’s pretty much a goner for you if you don’t do baseball now. If you do baseball, you can always come back to football.

“There is a rookie program where you can get picked up at 20, 22, 23, and go through that route. That was always the thing. We had teams calling my dad being like, ‘Hey, is this baseball thing real or is it a hoax?’ That filled me with a little bit of confidence that I was actually somewhat decent at [football].”

Hendriks almost immediately had knee surgery (his second), then missed all of 2008 and half of 2009 following back surgery.

“In 2009, I didn’t miss any time with that, I think. I was in the [rookie-level Gulf Coast League], so we had extended spring training. Then I went to E-town [short-season Elizabethton] and [low-Class A] Beloit.”

He stayed healthy enough to make a run at the minor-league ERA title last season, though an appendectomy in July knocked him out of the Futures Game.

“I missed it by about four outs,” Hendriks said about qualifying for the ERA title. “And they refused to pitch me in the last game of the season to see if I could win it. The guy who did win it was Brandon Beachy, who was a 1.73 [ERA, compared to Hendriks’ 1.74], and he was in Class AAA all year.

“That year, I missed time with the appendix — and it cost me the Futures Game. They sent Anthony Slama instead. That would’ve been the one in Anaheim. But I would’ve had the innings title, except my first game back after the appendix, they piggybacked me with Alex Wimmers. He got the start and I didn’t. They cost me with that one because they prioritize first-rounders over weird Australian kids.

“The appendix, I was up all night. I used to read on my laptop. I pitched the night before. It was me versus Jeurys Familia. I didn’t get much sleep the night before I threw, and our trainer was like, ‘It’s nothing. Get on the bus.’ I was like, ‘This is something. I’m going to go to the hospital.’ He was like, ‘OK, if you go to the hospital, you have to find your own way to Jupiter,’ we were headed toward, or something like that. I was like, ‘That’s fine.’ It ended up bursting in the ER while I was in the hospital.”

“This [writer] must be high on me because four quality pitches, that’s a stretch,” Hendriks said, laughing. “But 86 mph? I mean, I was just growing into myself as well. Even in the big leagues, I was 88-92 pretty consistently. I don’t know if there were too many 93s, but I’ll claim it.”

His slider is tight and short with late break, and some scouts consider it his best pitch.

“It turned out to be a lot closer to that once I started throwing it a little bit more,” Hendriks said. “I first came to the U.S. with a four-seam, a curveball and a changeup. There was no two-seam, no nothing. Next year, I came back with a two-seam and a slider. Since, I’ve banged the two-seam.”

Others prefer his changeup, and his curveball — his best pitch prior to the back surgery — isn’t far behind. He also throws a cutter at times.

“Yeah, the curveball was my main pitch before that, but I definitely don’t throw a cutter. It may have just been a [terrible] slider,” Hendriks said. “It’s interesting they tried to correlate the injuries into it because I’ve never made that connection.

“Then I had elbow chips removed in ‘13, and that took my changeup out. I haven’t had one since.”

Hendriks pitched in Australia’s resurgent winter league in the offseason, getting useful extra work. He’s ticketed for Class AA in 2011 and could become the best product of the Twins’ extensive Australian scouting efforts.

“I had the [1.74 ERA] over here as a starter, and then I went back to Australia and played in the ABL [Australian Baseball League] to just get 40 innings in,” Hendriks said. “My smart idea was there are 40 games in the season, so I’ll just close every game. The Twins didn’t like that one. They called after my first two games and they were like, ‘What are you doing?’

“I proceeded to get 20 innings in of the 40 that they wanted me to. In January, they called me, ‘Just shut it down. This isn’t doing anybody any good.’ With a [6.49 ERA], it was not good. I had like one start where I went seven shutout [innings] and the rest were awful.

“When I first came over, we had 10 or 12 [Australian players]. But we also had two Czech Republic, two Russians, a German, two Dutch, a French, three Koreans, one Taiwanese. We were a smorgasbord.

“I ended up doing that and then having a very mediocre Twins career over 2011, ‘12 and ‘13 with a career 6 [ERA]. I always finished well, though. I always had a better September than anything else, so I probably should have worked harder in the offseason then.”