In a season filled with bright spots in 2023, Gunnar Henderson was one of the brightest. After getting off to a slow start, he shined in the second half and was the team’s best player in their disappointingly short postseason. Gunnar is adding some personal hardware though, first a Silver Slugger Award and now the unanimous American League Rookie Of The Year.
Gunnar deserves all the accolades he is receiving, as he is undoubtedly one of the brightest young stars in an MLB sky full of them. Henderson, who was named the Most Valuable Oriole by local media, is the Orioles’ first Rookie of the Year since Gregg Olson in 1989. The young slugger hit .255/.325/.489 with 28 HR, 29 2B, 9 3B, 82 RBI, 56 BB, and 10 SB in 150 games, playing shortstop and third base. That was good for a 4.6 fWAR, trailing only the NL’s Rookie of the Year, Corbin Carroll of the Diamondbacks. For those of you who like Statcast metrics, Gunnar was 95th percentile in hard-hit%, 91st in avg. exit velo, 77th in xSLG, and 75th in barrel%.
Yeah, the guy raked.
Something some fans may not realize though, is that in addition to the personal accomplishment, Gunnar winning the ROY helps his team as well. It earns the Orioles a Draft Pick, but as this is a newer rule, many fans aren’t that familiar with it – why they got this pick, what they can do with it, and how it will affect the team going forward.
So that is what we will be doing today: explaining why the Orioles are getting this pick, what kind of talent may be available for them, and how the rule will influence what they do with other rookies c0ming down the pike.
So the most important question is why? Why are the Orioles being rewarded for Gunnar’s performance? Well, you can thank the new CBA for that. When the CBA was agreed upon in the Spring of 2022, one of the new clauses was the Prospect Promotion Incentive, which says this: if a rookie who is ranked in the Top 100 on two of the three big lists (ESPN, Baseball America, MLB Pipeline) wins ROY after being on the Opening Day Roster, the team would be compensated with a pick in the MLB Amateur Draft. If they finish second or third in the voting, the team gets a pick in the International Draft. The rule was implemented in order to try to stop, or at least hinder, the service time manipulation we’ve seen around baseball for years. It was a process that fans and players hated and was a massive issue that needed to be addressed. But you understood it from a team perspective: why give up a year of a young star’s service time down the road for a few months of play now? The new rule hasn’t completely solved the issue, as we have still seen clear manipulation over the past two seasons, but it did do one thing: the star-level prospects start the year on the major league roster because of that potential compensation.
Now that we have explained the why, let’s explain the what. What kind of talent can the Orioles get with this pick?
That is a bit hard to do, but let’s try anyway. The pick will be around a First Round Pick/Comp A pick. Let’s just say around that 32 – 35 range. So, what kind of talent is available? The problem with that question is that the MLB Draft is much more unpredictable than say, the NFL Draft.
What we can do is look at the type of talent the O’s have targeted with picks like this. In Mike Elias’s first Draft, he took Gunnar with his first comp pick. Gunnar was a highly talented high schooler who only fell because he had a commitment to Auburn and a high asking price. Then, the O’s took a different approach with the next picks in this range. In 2020, he got Jordan Westburg and Hudson Haskin. These were more low ceiling/high floor college players. It is a good process but a different approach compared to 2019. However, there is a bit of a trend going on. From 2021 to now, Elias has taken upside college players with picks in this range. He took Connor Norby in ’21, an upside second baseman who has developed his power. In ’22, he took Dylan Beavers, a high-upside outfielder whose swing the O’s have completely overhauled. This caused him to start slow, but he has come on strong and has a big power upside. Elias continued this trend by taking Mac Horvath in last year’s draft. He’s another high-upside College hitter who could break out next year.
As you can see, Elias does follow a certain trend with his picks in this range. He usually goes for the big-swing, high-upside player who they can develop. However, this year the O’s are also getting another Comp pick in Round B, a top 50 pick, so they will have a ton of money and picks to work with. It is possible that he goes for another high-upside High Schooler because he has more resources in this Draft. Lately, Elias has been shooting for the stars with his picks in this range, so expect that.
We described the why and what; now it is time for the how: How will this rule affect the decisions with other prospects? It is no secret that the Orioles have another number-one prospect in Jackson Holliday. As we already discussed, if the Orioles want that Draft pick comp, they need to start Holliday on the Opening Day Major League Roster, or they can’t get that pick. The pick can certainly entice Elias to put him on the Opening Day roster, and it just depends if he can perform in Spring. If he looks overmatched at MLB camp, he won’t make the cut of course, but if he looks ready to go, expect him in Baltimore running down the orange carpet. If Holliday finishes in the top two in ROY voting, he earns a year of service time regardless of how long he is actually at the MLB level. But to finish top two would mean he’s doing very well of course, hopefully helping the Birds to their second straight division title. None of us would gripe too hard about losing him in 2029 instead of 2030 or whatever at that point (and we’ll soon learn if we should expect it anyway, with how John Angelos & the front office treat Henderson’s and Adley Rutschman‘s contracts.)
Holliday looking good in Spring will be the deciding factor, and that goes for any prospect going forward with the Orioles in 2024 and beyond.
Gunnar showed that he is an absolute superstar, and his great year will help the Orioles in more ways than one and could set a precedent with other prospects like him going forward.
