As Kyle Hendricks gears up for his 1st bullpen since his shoulder injury, the battle for the Chicago Cubs’ No. 5 starter begins

MESA, Ariz. — A long rehab process is finally leading back to the mound for Kyle Hendricks.

The Chicago Cubs veteran right-hander is slated for a light touch-and-feel bullpen Friday, the first time he will pitch off a mound since suffering a capsular tear in his right shoulder that ended his 2022 season in July.

“This fun part of getting to the next phase, getting through those long-toss programs, still feeling good and taking advantage of it all,” Hendricks said Saturday.

Hendricks believes he will need three to four of those lighter bullpens before he takes on a higher-intensity, full-repertoire bullpen. He estimates he is roughly a month behind schedule with the expectation he will begin the season on the injured list. Hendricks sounded unsure about the possibility of pitching in a Cactus League game by the end of spring.

“There’s a happy middle ground with how much I’m going to throw going forward, but I’m so excited with the group we’ve put together and I know the depth we have for the beginning of the season, we’re going to be able to cover no matter what,” Hendricks said. “That gives them a lot of confidence too. They just want me to get back to being who I am and I can’t thank them enough for their support and the plan they put together for me.”

Hendricks, 33, is coming off his fewest starts (16) over a 162-game season since he debuted in 2014. He’s trying not to put expectations on himself to be a version who posted a 3.36 ERA in his eight seasons before an injury-plagued 2022.

“I’m a competitive guy so I have something to prove, obviously to myself No. 1, and that’s where it starts,” Hendricks said. “I just want to be here and be part of this group. I know what we’ve put together and I know here we can go so I just want to be out there again every fifth day being that consistent guy, giving my team a chance to win so they can rely on me — that’s what I really take pride in.”

Hendricks, the only player left on the roster from the 2016 World Series title team, is in the final season of the four-year contract he signed in March 2019. The Cubs hold a $16 million option on Hendricks for 2024 ($1.5 million buyout). Hendricks said he hasn’t thought that far ahead about the possibility this is his last season with the Cubs.

“Baseball players in general, we kind of stay in the moment, stay in the present,” Hendricks said. “I’m so excited to take advantage of what we have here. Every year is different, things change even throughout the year now, there’s so much turnover. Just take advantage of the group we have and to attack it for as long as we can and see what we can get out of it. … The future from there, that’ll take care of itself if we do what we need to do starting now.”

With Hendricks sidelined to start the season, one rotation spot is up for grabs.

Right-handers Adrian Sampson, Hayden Wesneski, Javier Assad and nonroster invitees will be in the mix this spring, competing for the No. 5 starter spot. The NRI group vying for the opportunity could include Roenis Elías, Nick Neidert and Jordan Holloway, who all have big-league experience.

“We’ve got more depth in our system than we’ve had in a long time from a starting pitcher standpoint,” manager David Ross said. “I’m excited about watching how that plays out this spring. … The messaging to those guys is just go out and be yourself and do your thing. I think that’s going to be our message for everybody a lot. So I want you to pitch to your strength, compete, get ready for the season and let us make those decisions.”

Two notable pitchers who won’t be fighting for a rotation spot: Keegan Thompson and Adbert Alzolay. Thompson has been informed he will be in the bullpen, Ross said Saturday, a role the 27-year-old thrived in last season. Alzolay is also in play to be part of the opening-day bullpen.

“Expect big innings out of him this year,” Ross said.

A dominant performance in the Dominican winter league gave a glimpse of the stuff left-hander Roenis Elías can bring to the Cubs when he’s locked in.

Elías allowed only four runs in 39 innings spanning seven starts for Águilas Cibaeñas while striking out 38 and walking 10 batters. Elías, 34, has appeared in 133 big-league games (54 starts) since he reached the majors in 2014 but has pitched in only seven games, all last season with the Seattle Mariners, since 2019.

Elías, who threw his first live batting practice Friday, is building up for a starter’s workload early in camp as he prepares to pitch for Team Cuba in the World Baseball Classic. However, it’s not clear yet how the Cubs might want to deploy him if he makes the team.

“He’s a guy that we see can do a lot of different things,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “He’s got the weapons to be a more dominant lefty-type reliever, but he’s also got the pitch package you’d like to be able to take you one time, two times through the order if we do want to stretch him out as a starter. … He wants to be 0-1, 0-2 on every guy and he’s got multiple pitches he can throw in the strike zone, so when you have that feel and good enough stuff to be able to execute then you can usually work your way through lineups pretty well.”