Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson has won Rookie of the Year for the American League, per an announcement from the Baseball Writers Association of America. Tanner Bibee of the Guardians placed second while Triston Casas of the Red Sox placed third.
Henderson got to make his major league debut last year as a September call-up, just a couple of months after his 21st birthday. Despite his young age, he held himself incredibly well. His 25.8% strikeout rate was a bit above average, but he also drew walks at a 12.1% clip. His .259/.348/.440 batting line last year resulted in a 128 wRC+, indicating he was 28% above league average in that time. That call-up gave him a chance to get a taste of the majors while maintaining rookie status, since he didn’t get to 130 at-bat or 45 days on the roster.
The O’s came into 2023 looking to firmly stamp out their rebuild and make the postseason for the first time since 2016. Henderson’s first full season helped them do just that, as he hit 28 home runs and stole 10 bases. His walk rate dipped to 9%, though that was still above league average. His .259/.348/.440 batting line translated to a wRC+ of 123. He split his time between shortstop and third base, getting strong grades at both positions. FanGraphs considered him to be worth 4.6 wins above replacement while Baseball Reference had him at 6.2. The Orioles, meanwhile, won 101 games and took the top spot in the American League East.
The award is surely gratifying for Henderson and the O’s in and of itself, but there are other implications of this news. The new collective bargaining agreement contains measures designed to combat service time manipulation through the prospect promotion incentive, or PPI. Top-two Rookie of the Year finishers who were Top 100 prospects on at least two preseason lists at Baseball America, ESPN and MLB Pipeline are automatically credited with a full service year. That won’t apply to Henderson, who was up all year and earned a full service year regardless, though he was the #1 prospect on all three of those lists.
But players with PPI status can also earn extra draft picks for their clubs if they have less than 60 days of service time to start the season and earn a full service year the traditional way, as Henderson did, while also appearing on those preseason prospect lists. Players in that camp who finish in the top two in Rookie of the Year voting or top three in Cy Young or Most Valuable Player voting during their pre-arbitration seasons earn a bonus pick after the first round for their club. That means the O’s, who are already loaded with young talent, will get a valuable extra pick in next year’s draft.
Bibee and Casas also had strong seasons, but not enough to catch Henderson. The former made 25 starts for the Guards with a 2.98 earned run average, 24.1% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. He wasn’t promoted until late April but will earn a full service year by getting second place in this voting. But since he didn’t get that service year the traditional way, the Guards won’t get a bonus draft pick. Casas hit 24 home runs and walked in 13.9% of his plate appearances, leading to a .263/.367/.490 batting line and 129 wRC+. He was in the majors all year, so the voting won’t impact him from a service time perspective, but he falls just shy of getting the Red Sox a bonus pick.
Henderson was a unanimous selection, per the full vote tally from the BBWAA, getting all 30 first-place votes. Bibee got 20 of the second-place votes while Casas got six. Other players receiving votes were Josh Jung of the Rangers, Yainer Diaz of the Astros, Masataka Yoshida of the Red Sox, Edouard Julien of the Twins and Anthony Volpe of the Yankees.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Congratulations!
1ST 2ND 3RD POINTS
G. Henderson, BAL 30 150
T. Bibee, CLE 20 7 67
T. Casas, BOS 6 7 25
J. Jung, TEX 3 7 16
Y. Diaz, HOU 1 3 6
M. Yoshida, BOS 3 3
E. Julien, MIN 2 2
A. Volpe, NYY 1 1
Thank you
So who has the best career?
Henderson, Jung and Casas in the order they should have finished.
HOF for any of them? Henderson maybe, Jung maybe and Casas maybe. Not one appears to be lock like in past years.
TF – I’m marking my calendar for December 2046, we will see then about the HOF!
Fever – I don’t think my calendar will extend that far but I’ll be monitoring things from above!!!
Definitely congratulations! Henderson is the real deal, he beat out a rookie that a 20/20 season this season. Wow!
Are they putting an * on the stolen base stat this year?
@Melchez17- so Anthony Volpe is a piece of trash now? You don’t expect him to get better? Not really surprised. We’ll see who has a better career of the two players? Henderson is a really good player. I expect Volpe to be just as good,or maybe even better.
Thats some serious kool-aid bud. Henderson is far superior bat to ball skills.
Give it some time, it was just one year. I betcha your wrong, and if you are we’ll never probably hear from you again. So take a chill pill bud. Keep it calm.
Where did I say he was a piece of trash? You sound like a Taylor Swift fan.
Melch – Agreed, it’s amazing how some people are oblivious to the rule changes this year that made stolen bases much easier.
Can you imagine if Rickey or Lou were playing in their prime now with these rules?
Can’t wait for the Designated Runner to be implemented, welcome back Billy Hamilton.
The only big shock, in my opinion, is no down votes for Royce Lewis. I’d have put him in the top 3.
Geez wasn’t the season like several months ago? Are they gonna wait til New Year’s Eve to announce cy young ? Get on with it already baseball. And people wonder if MLB has a PR problem
I don’t see the problem. It keeps baseball in the news in the brief lull between the WS ending and offseason moves starting in earnest.
Agreed. Announcing after the World Series makes sense. It would be lost in the news otherwise.
Keeps baseball in the news, how? The steady drip like an announcement on a Monday afternoon?
Well if Gerrit Cole isn’t the AL CY Young award winner. I’m shaving the head.
I think you should shave your head regardless.
Congratulations! Now for some thoughts and prayers for his sophomore slump in 2024.
No surprise here. Told all you biased Casas fans- he had nothing on this guy. Henderson had much more WAR and was overall just better
Casas had a nice three-month run after a slow start, but I saw him more around 5th with this rookie class. Diaz and Jung should have finished ahead of Casas.
There were some “other” Red Sox fans debating me that Casas should have won ROY over Henderson… but Casas wasn’t even second place here.
I would have loved if he won, being a Sox fan myself, but I’m not biased. Henderson was leagues better this year.
I was watching on MLBN, who totally telegraphed who was going to win when they had Cal Ripken making the announcement!
Give Casas credit. His first month or so was horrible. Like send-him-to-AA horrible.
It actually wasn’t. It was actually rock solid beyond that one frequent, small sample luck based bugaboo: BABIP. Every other raw and statcast measure spoke of a player who would quickly regress positively towards the mean and be here to stay, and that’s exactly what happened.
Of course give Casas credit. He was great. My point is that he wasn’t as great as Henderson this year.
Congrats Gunnar & Corbin! Solid years from both, excited to see what they bring in the future. Go Pads
Lots of quality candidates in both leagues this year
Yes, in incontinent situations, a pad is a gogsend, to be sure!
Happily Bank another draft pick! Jackson Holliday needs to run it back next year while we’re at it.
Excellent call, Baltimore is going to be very competitive for a long time to come.
I think there is an error in the article. Gunnar’s slash of .259/.348/.440 is listed twice, both for his September call-up in 22, as well as what he did this year. More notably, they resulted in slightly different wRC+ according to the piece. Earlier it’s 123; later it’s 129..
O’s need to look him up to a 10-12 year deal like the suspended Tampa short stop. 190-200 MM. could have Gunnar bite. Then Adley next
Boras will have something to say about it
That’s Anthony “Runner up to the Runner up to the Runner up to the Runner up to the Runner up to the Runner up Rookie of the Year” Volpe.
Dusty Baker strikes again!
Not sure Diaz would have beaten out Henderson for ROY, but he definitely would have finished top 2-3 if he played regularly.
Tabeitback – Wait a second. Are you suggesting that if all the candidates had gotten to play 150 to 162 games Diaz would have finished 2nd or 3rd?
Not likely. Same finish as suggested above – Henderson, Jung and Casas. Diaz has never played more than 73 games so his fatigue factor is unknown. The other three are studs and will continue to be studs. Diaz is a catcher who needs to prove he can handle 120 to 130 games a year. At that point, I will buy in to what you suggested but I’d still put him fourth.
You realize that Diaz could have played more at DH and 1B right? Especially when Alvarez was out and Abreu was slumping. So he doesn’t need to prove he can catch for 120 to 130 games.
And yes, he would have passed Jung and Casas if he played in 25-30 more games. He is a MUCH better hitter than both. He had a 3.2 WAR, which was higher than Jung already, and he had 120 fewer ABs.
I honestly don’t even think it’s debatable if you look at his numbers. They were already better, in fewer ABs. Now, that said, I don’t think he passes Henderson.
The question is it debatable yes of course it is in fact I think Casas is a better hitter then Diaz now and in the future. I will concentrate on Casas only because I’m very familiar with him if we look at month to month splits
April: Diaz .250/.310/.333 Casas .137/.284/.301
May: Diaz .235/.229/.441 Casas .257/.338/.429
June: Diaz .310/.314/.583 Casas ..286/.375/.476
July: Diaz .264/.299/.556 Casas .348/.442/.758
Aug: Diaz .302/.337/.558 Casas ..294/.400/.518
Sep: Diaz .300/.340/.620 Casas ..265/.368/.490
It’s debatable who the better is between those two one of them controls the strike zone gets on base and rarely chases. The other is a free swinger to the nth degree he will swing at everything he does damage when he hits the ball no doubt about that but being a much better hitter no he isn’t. I expect as the book gets around on this guy teams simply aren’t going throw him strikes he gets himself out he will swing at anything. He got one hit in the post against the superior pitching. My guess is that is what you’ll see next year until he makes an adjustment if he can. You know what happens to Casas if they don’t throw him strikes, he walks and that is why he’s a better hitter.
In fact if you dig deeper into the numbers I think this guy got lucky this year. I mean a guy that clearly walks never he must hit the ball really hard nope Casas hits it harder. Well he had 23 homers in less at bats he must barrel a ton of balls nope Casas barrels more balls, he must hit a lot hard hit balls nope Casas hits more of those as well. Oh he must be a line drive machine nope Casas has more of those as well.
He had a really good fortunate year I would worry about the guy moving forward especially after what the whole league saw. Any pitcher that throws that guy a strike should be fined.
If he plays a full year at catcher by virtue of it being the more valuable position by far he should of been ahead of Casas and Jung but he didn’t and he’s not a better hitter and wager going forward that Jung and especially Casas are much better hitters.
Bruin1012 – Nice reply. The history of Diaz as a hitter at the MLB level is incredibly limited. 110 games. Casas has 159 games and Henderson has 184 games. That’s not much to draw long term conclusions on.
Think about the process of becoming a big league hitter. You come up and teams start building scouting reports on how to get you out. Some work and some don’t. When enough teams are successful with a specific approach the hitter must adapt and make the approach ineffective. Young players all deal with this challenge differently.
Since it’s too early to define which guy is best, then check out their history in the minors. Each one had an excellent minor league career so that doesn’t distinguish them. Diaz got the least attention but that doesn’t mean he is the worst player, it just means his organization didn’t back him to the degree that the other two got backed.
Time will tell. Diaz is a surprise but that doesn’t diminish what he’s accomplished. Casas started slowly and that doesn’t diminish what he has accomplished. Gunner went through success then struggled and made adjustments and succeeded. He’s farthest down the maturity path but that doesn’t suggest he’s better, just more experienced.
I think all three are great players now who will get significantly better over time.
Troll Diaz is a catcher and from the numbers I was able to gather he was a good one. Elite level pop times, good blocking skills basically all good stats accept framing well below average there. The stat we can’t see is if pitchers like and feel comfortable throwing to him maybe that’s why Dusty used the much inferior Maldonado as his main catcher in the playoffs.
One thing I am sure of Diaz isn’t going to survive having the highest chase rate and lowest walk rate in baseball. On pure hitting I would place Casas number 1 moving forward out of all the rookies. He controls the strike zone he hits the ball hard he simply will not chase he has all the hallmarks of an outstanding hitter for years to come. He, of course, plays 1st base which limits his value in comparison to every other non 1st baseman but pure hitting . It will be interesting to watch if Diaz can make the adjustments next year but he Shute did look bad in the post season an easy out he chased like crazy.
Diaz is definitely not a free swinger. Sure he doesn’t walk very often, but he’s not Altuve or Vladimir Guerrero. He just makes contact when he does swing, sort of like a Yuri Gurriel. This is evidenced by his below 20% k rate.
As for who is a better hitter long term…maybe you are right. All I know is Diaz has hit at every level and had better stats this year. He had 3.2 WAR this year compared to Casas at 2.2. I’d imagine that only improves with 25-30 more games. Their OPS+ was very similar though, so maybe Casas is able to sustain it and Diaz isn’t. All I know is the more Diaz played, the better he hit. You can point to luck, but since he has hit well at every level and hit better with more playing time, I’m guessing it’s probably not luck.
All of that is not really relevant to the comment I originally made though. Had Baker played Diaz 25-30 more games, he would have finished in the top 2-3 in ROY voting. He already had a higher WAR, and very similar counting stats. With 25-30 more games he likely hits close to 30 HR with 75-80 RBI.
Take it I was simply replying to the MUCH better hitter argument which I completely disagree with and used Casas as an example I’m not as familiar with Jung so didn’t want to go comment there. If you are going value he’s a catcher and appears to be a good one defensively and who know maybe he has a magic stick and can continue to hit big league pitching hard despite chasing off the plate. When I say chase I mean he chases pitches out of the strike zone and he was in the 99th percentile their and that’s not sustainable in the big leagues imo. The problem with chasing that many pitches is you get yourself out by swinging at pitches off the plate you might not strike out but I expect he is going to see a ton of pitches out of the zone next year it will be up to him to adjust. His kind of hitting profile I want to see him do it for a couple years at the big league level where pitchers make a lot less mistakes in the minors and if you have a flaw they will expose it.
Bruin: Great post. So, Cases really only had a slow April. Thanks.
Bruin1012 – I know you are a guy who likes to watch to evaluate as I do. I got to see Jung far more than Henderson, Casas or Diaz and I like his upside as much as the other three. He looks like a young all-star when you watch him make plays Devers could never dream to make and when he hits in the clutch with power. Like I said, I think it’s splitting hairs at this point because at this point in time I’m seeing a horse race that is a four way photo finish.
Time will give us the answer and if anyone who has provided insights into this string of comments believes they can see the future better than others that’s great. I know I can’t. All I can do is establish trends with data, know the system each player is playing within and observe each players learning process as they get more reps. I’m excited for baseball because all four kids are excellent which makes the game just a little bit better.
“Meanwhile” can’t come in the middle of a sentence, set off by two commas—it needs to be at the start.