How becoming arrogant paid off for $70m man Liam Hendriks

Liam Hendriks turned his back on an AFL career and has signed the richest deal in baseball history for a relief pitcher.

Liam Hendriks changed from easygoing to arrogant and it paid off on the mound

The new $70 million man of Australian sports, baseball pitcher Liam Hendriks, had to stop being a typical “happy go lucky Aussie” and start acting “confident and arrogant” to become a success.

Hendriks recently signed the most lucrative contract for a relief pitcher in baseball history in annual terms, agreeing to a deal with the Chicago White Sox that could see him paid $70m over the next four seasons.

The deal puts Hendriks below only basketball star Ben Simmons and Formula One ace Daniel Ricciardo in terms of earning capacity, and above the likes of Ash Barty and golfer Jason Day depending on their playing results.

Australian cricketers, let alone AFL and NRL stars, are not even in his league.

It is a uniquely structured deal for Hendriks, who has put up successive all-star seasons for his old club, the Oakland Athletics, and then become a free agent at exactly the right time when other clubs wanted a “closer” like him who successfully – and often theatrically – shuts down the opposition in the last inning to seal a win.

Hendriks gets a $US11m ($14.16m) salary this year, then $16.7m in 2022 and $18m the year after. The White Sox then have an unusual $19m option for 2024 and if they choose not to, can pay Hendriks about $1.9m annually for another 10 years.

Speaking on Friday, Hendriks said he had a surprising reaction when the terms of the deal first sank in.

“I saw an article and they translated it to Aussie dollars, and I’m like, ’Oh god’. I didn’t realise it was that extreme.

“Now I have to make sure I‘m worth the money. It’s all well and good getting the contract. Now I have to go out and make that contract look like it was money well spent and make sure I do Australian baseball proud.”

Hendriks turns 32 just before pre-season spring training starts in about three weeks time for his new team, and is no overnight success story.

He revealed he turned his back on following his father Geoff — who won a premiership at West Perth in the West Australian Football League in the 1970s — into Australian rules football, even though he could have qualified for the West Coast Eagles under the father/son draft rule, and chose baseball instead.

“The whole premise was that if I didn’t like it in two years I had the opportunity to come back to footy. I even had teams calling asking is this baseball thing real or is he just saying that to put people off the scent of him going father/son to the Eagles. But it turned out to be a real thing and we’re here doing this because of it.”

Before then, Hendriks had been cut from the WA state baseball squad, and its reserve team, at 14. Even when he eventually signed a professional contract with the Minnesota Twins, he endured years in the minor leagues, was cut from several major league teams half a dozen times and injuries piled up.

There have been two knee surgeries, spinal surgery, and his appendix taken out, bone chips removed from his elbow and a hip issue.

“It’s a bit more expansive than your average person,” Hendriks deadpanned when listing off the medical procedures. “But it’s part and parcel of being an athlete and putting your body on the line all the time.”

The last time he was cut was in mid-2018 when Oakland sent him back to the minors. Hendriks changed his personality on the mound while embracing analytical data. It changed his career and after returning to Oakland he has starred for two seasons

“Off the field I like to be more go with the flow, the typical Aussie. On the mound, I tried doing that and it didn’t work. I wasn’t aggressive enough,” Hendriks said.

“What I found was the best mix of me is I get extremely confident and extremely arrogant. It doesn’t matter who you are and if you’re the best hitter in the world. I’m better than you, in that moment. That is my mindset. I’m going to beat you, I’m 100 times better than you and I’m going to show you multiple times how I’m going to beat you.”

Hendriks has also paid for his own pitching data, including the velocity of his pitches and the degree of spin he can impart, to be crunched by a San Francisco data company called Codify. The information included what pitches worked in certain areas against every batter he faced, which he also credits for his success of the past two years.

“It can give me a bit of a snapshot of where I can get these guys out. This is where they are at their weakest and I can attack that zone as much as I can accordingly. It has definitely allowed me to reformulate my entire approach to the game.”

Hendriks, who has played briefly for the Perth Heat in the Australian Baseball League, also said he hoped his success would lead to more recognition for baseball in Australia and its career path for young Australian athletes.

“We are the seventh ranked team in the world and that is much higher than some of the other sports that do get the recognition. We’ve had a lot more success, even at the Olympics, than other sports.”