Gunnar Henderson 2021

[RZNJ]

I go back to the Brooks vs Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray comparison.    Ripken and Murray played every level in the minors, debuted at 21 and became HOF's.   Brooks Robinson was forced to the majors at 18 because of the bonus baby rules at the time.   He didn't develop any faster than those guys.   In fact, it looks like he developed at a later age than those guys.     There are special players that could start in the majors at 18 (Robin Yount) hold their own and become HOF players.     They are few and far between.   

[Just Regular]

I think the Orioles present 3B situation, 2022 outlook, and Henderson's talent are some of why in his particular case this gambit has a little more appeal.

If 2022 is a write-off, but fielding the best possible team on Opening Day 2023 is a priority, and Henderson is the presumed best Oriole for that job on that day from here, it's just when do you want a talented young hitter to start seeing MLB stuff?   Its as old as time for MLB guys to beat up rookies, though orgs can make choices when to take those lumps.

Gunnar 2022 - the first half returns I feel are almost like is he looking more Schoop or more Machado.   Schoop was good, but not so good that you (Buck/Duquette at least, Elias/Sig are probably more sensitive) had to super care about asset maximization.   We're seeing with Adley this year one outcome for a Machado-level guy.   If the 2021 Orioles had the 2012 Orioles competitive context, of course we would have seen Rutschman by now.

Some of what's exciting for me about Henderson is, knowing what we do now with Elias' Spread the Risk preference in the 2020-2021 drafts, is that as 2019's draft unfolded, Gunnar was enough to attract him to take a Stars and Scrubs line with the post-Adley part of the first 10 rounds.   It gives me a hope he can climb that Witt/Machado dynamic left side infielder spectrum a little bit.   Knowing how the models weight age, one head to head I'm curious to see is if Gunnar with a full year of youth on Witt despite being draftmates can vaguely keep up with him as time goes by.

[Can_of_corn]

17 minutes ago, Prayin4Reign said:

I totally disagree with this take.  I think a player's confidence is a key component of their success.  I'm no scout, I don't pretend to be, but if Gunnar was in the Majors right now he'd be overmatched.  Learning different parts of the game, studying pitchers, what to do in different pitch counts, and then being exposed gradually to increased talent along the way is crucial for 99% of professional baseball players.  

And yet professional basketball players can be fine the year after HS, professional football players can be fine after a couple years of college and professional tennis players can win Grand Slams before being old enough to vote.

Odd how this one sport is so different.

[Tony-OH]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

If the rule was, a player drafted out of HS is eligible for FA after 9 pro seasons, he would be up.

And sure, he has development to do..which can be done in the majors.

Im going to go back to what I said…this is just how things have been done, so it’s what you are used to.  If service time was different and guys became free agents sooner, you would see teams developing players more in the majors and you wouldn’t think much of it.

And you are right, we are only talking about a few guys…the players that actually matter.

I think this is where your opinion goes off track. There is value in learning as you go up the chain. At each level they will see better stuff, command, pitch sequencing, and pitching awareness (reading of the bats, controlling running game, etc).

Like in anything, if you develop the right building blocks you have a better chance of success when you reach the major leagues.  Getting thrown into the big leagues when they are not ready is not good for anyone. 

I don't think service time will have anything to do with Gunnar spending 2022 in the minors unless he shows up next year and tears up AA and AAA, something considering his struggles above Low-A and his poor hitting against left-handers have shown.

He'll be 21 next year. If he has a good year in AA and maybe even gets some AAA time that would put him right on track to break in sometimes in 2023. 

That seems like an appropriate developmental timeline for him to me. 

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Why can't you learn fielding in the majors?

The person who learns something incrementally is probably more likely to have success rather than someone who is thrown in the deep end. I know how to run a few miles, but I'm going to suck as a marathon runner if I try to run one tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with step-by-step learning! We can't just throw everybody on the major league roster and ask them to learn fundamentals when the game is extremely fast and the pressure is extremely high.

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

And yet professional basketball players can be fine the year after HS, professional football players can be fine after a couple years of college and professional tennis players can win Grand Slams before being old enough to vote.

Odd how this one sport is so different.

It's very rare except for the basketball players to go from high school and be very good in the NBA right away. The NCAA basketball and football seasons have become the minor leagues for these players. NCAA baseball has become a minor league of sorts since most of the players drafted as 21 year olds skip the rookie ball levels and the best of the best can be in AA before that first partial season is out.

Baseball has a minor league system for a reason and it works. Arguments can be had for how long a player needs to be a certain level and some organizations are more aggressive than others, but I would disagree with anyone who thinks the minor serves no purpose and players are just in there because of service time. 

Very few players are held back in the minors for service time issues and hopefully the next CBA will get rid of the "couple weeks after spring training" loophole so we don't see players kept down when they should be in the major leagues.

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, interloper said:

The person who learns something incrementally is probably more likely to have success rather than someone who is thrown in the deep end. I know how to run a few miles, but I'm going to suck as a marathon runner if I try to run one tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with step-by-step learning! We can't just throw everybody on the major league roster and ask them to learn fundamentals when the game is extremely fast and the pressure is extremely high.

Yes, step by step learning is terrible.  And yes we can throw everyone on the major league roster and ask them to learn on the fly.  In case you haven't noticed, there's no pressure here in Baltimore, comfortably 40+ games out of first place.

I mean, just because we say so on a message board must mean we're correct.  Duh.  

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I think this is where your opinion goes off track. There is value in learning as you go up the chain. At each level they will see better stuff, command, pitch sequencing, and pitching awareness (reading of the bats, controlling running game, etc).

Like in anything, if you develop the right building blocks you have a better chance of success when you reach the major leagues.  Getting thrown into the big leagues when they are not ready is not good for anyone. 

I don't think service time will have anything to do with Gunnar spending 2022 in the minors unless he shows up next year and tears up AA and AAA, something considering his struggles above Low-A and his poor hitting against left-handers have shown.

He'll be 21 next year. If he has a good year in AA and maybe even gets some AAA time that would put him right on track to break in sometimes in 2023. 

That seems like an appropriate developmental timeline for him to me. 

Sure..he can do those things in 2022 And be ready to go.  However, my point is, if the service time rules were different, this process would be speeded up, especially for your better prospects.  
 

Things are done they way they are because you can.  If you take something away, adjustments are made.  The adjustment, in this case, would be that they would move along guys quicker and be more aggressive.

All we heard last year and in the offseason was how well Gunnar showed in the camp last year and this spring.  He started to get a lot of publicity and people saying he was one of the next guys to leap into the top 100 lists.  So, after facing older competition and holding his own, they send him back down to Delmarva, where he showed he was extremely advanced for the league.

If service time was an issue, I don’t think he seems Delmarva and even if he does, it’s just a get your feet wet thing like they did with the draft class in the FCL.  He doesn’t play 35 games there..maybe he gets 10..maybe.

Now, would he have gotten into AA sooner this year?  Yea I think he would have.  Would that mean that he starts in AAA in 2022?  I tend to doubt it but maybe. I do feel that he would be in AAA sooner in 2022 though, assuming good performance in AA.

In the example I provided, a HS kid would essentially become a FA at age 27.  For Henderson, that would be after the 2027 season.  The Os wouldn’t waste a year of him in the minors (which is basically what we are talking about here, one full season) if they knew he was going to be a FA that soon.  As it stands right now, if things go right and Gunnar is in the majors by May of 2023, he basically isn’t a FA until after 2029.  By having him in the minors essentially 2-4 months longer, the team will get at another full year out of him.  
 

Under the current rules, it’s easy to say he needs those few months to develop.  Under a different set of rules, the team thinks differently.

[Just Regular]

10 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

I go back to the Brooks vs Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray comparison.    Ripken and Murray played every level in the minors, debuted at 21 and became HOF's.   Brooks Robinson was forced to the majors at 18 because of the bonus baby rules at the time.   He didn't develop any faster than those guys.   In fact, it looks like he developed at a later age than those guys.     There are special players that could start in the majors at 18 (Robin Yount) hold their own and become HOF players.     They are few and far between.   

These are interesting to look back on.   I know today's draft is somewhat regulated such that Age 18 and Age 21 guys are most of the population.   The NCAA choice usually takes the Age 19/20 Adley Rutschman, Stephen Strasburg, Jack Leiter type guy off the map.

Eddie 2.24.1956 seems to have been eligible in 1973's draft as <17.5 years old, without having had to do the Bryce GED/Junior College trick to get there.  He got a Bluefield summer in what I think of as "high school junior year", and then a full year in Florida in 1974.

Cal 8.24.1960 was closer to 18 in 1978's draft before getting that same Bluefield summer, and full league seasons at 18/19/20.

My first time noticing my two childhood icons had birthdays exactly 6 months apart, so who's to say if they were 4 or 5 years apart in age.

Because COVID, Henderson 6.29.2001 is wrapping up his Age 18/19/20 baseball life with 1/3rd of the full season game experience.

 

[RZNJ]

All you need to do is go back to when teams had the reserve clause and there was no free agency.  No service time rules.   Get the average age a player made his major league debut and compare to today.

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Sure..he can do those things in 2022 And be ready to go.  However, my point is, if the service time rules were different, this process would be speeded up, especially for your better prospects.  
 

Things are done they way they are because you can.  If you take something away, adjustments are made.  The adjustment, in this case, would be that they would move along guys quicker and be more aggressive.

All we heard last year and in the offseason was how well Gunnar showed in the camp last year and this spring.  He started to get a lot of publicity and people saying he was one of the next guys to leap into the top 100 lists.  So, after facing older competition and holding his own, they send him back down to Delmarva, where he showed he was extremely advanced for the league.

If service time was an issue, I don’t think he seems Delmarva and even if he does, it’s just a get your feet wet thing like they did with the draft class in the FCL.  He doesn’t play 35 games there..maybe he gets 10..maybe.

Now, would he have gotten into AA sooner this year?  Yea I think he would have.  Would that mean that he starts in AAA in 2022?  I tend to doubt it but maybe. I do feel that he would be in AAA sooner in 2022 though, assuming good performance in AA.

In the example I provided, a HS kid would essentially become a FA at age 27.  For Henderson, that would be after the 2027 season.  The Os wouldn’t waste a year of him in the minors (which is basically what we are talking about here, one full season) if they knew he was going to be a FA that soon.  As it stands right now, if things go right and Gunnar is in the majors by May of 2023, he basically isn’t a FA until after 2029.  By having him in the minors essentially 2-4 months longer, the team will get at another full year out of him.  
 

Under the current rules, it’s easy to say he needs those few months to develop.  Under a different set of rules, the team thinks differently.

One, almost all of our news from the alternate camp came from the Orioles themselves. We now know they are going to be nothing out but propaganda about their prospects. I heard from other sources that Henderson actually struggled badly at first and then really came around at the end. It's worth noting by that time he was seeing the same pitchers over and over.

At 20 years old and with only a little GCL time under his belt, starting off at Delmarva was the right move. He did well, and they promoted him to Aberdeen where he struggled a bit. He made errors, he had a lot of miss, and he struggled mightily against left-handed pitching. He had a hot week or so and they decided to give him a taste of AA. 

Service time issues has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with Henderson right now. He is on track through the development system and in fact, is ahead of the normal curve by being in AA right now at 20 years old.

I agree with you the service time issues need to be sorted out in the new CBA (though I don't have a lot of faith these two sides can put something together that makes sense) but I disagree that Henderson's developmental path this year has anything to do with service time issues. 

If you wanna argue Rutschman, that's a different story because if not for team performance, 40-man, and service time issues, he certainly would be in the big leagues right now. 

[Tony-OH]

5 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

All you need to do is go back to when teams had the reserve clause and there was no free agency.  No service time rules.   Get the average age a player made his major league debut and compare to today.

I believe Frobby did this and did see a major difference.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

One, almost all of our news from the alternate camp came from the Orioles themselves. We now know they are going to be nothing out but propaganda about their prospects. I heard from other sources that Henderson actually struggled badly at first and then really came around at the end. It's worth noting by that time he was seeing the same pitchers over and over.

At 20 years old and with only a little GCL time under his belt, starting off at Delmarva was the right move. He did well, and they promoted him to Aberdeen where he struggled a bit. He made errors, he had a lot of miss, and he struggled mightily against left-handed pitching. He had a hot week or so and they decided to give him a taste of AA. 

Service time issues has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with Henderson right now. He is on track through the development system and in fact, is ahead of the normal curve by being in AA right now at 20 years old.

I agree with you the service time issues need to be sorted out in the new CBA (though I don't have a lot of faith these two sides can put something together that makes sense) but I disagree that Henderson's developmental path this year has anything to do with service time issues. 

If you wanna argue Rutschman, that's a different story because if not for team performance, 40-man, and service time issues, he certainly would be in the big leagues right now. 

I don’t think service time means much with Henderson right now either.  Like I said, I think he gets less time in Delmarva than he did, especially since he played so well but that doesn’t mean he is any different than right now.

But 2022 is where it starts to make a major difference.  Under the current rules, it’s possible but highly unlikely he is in Baltimore.  If the rules change, he may be.  That’s all I’m saying.

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

All you need to do is go back to when teams had the reserve clause and there was no free agency.  No service time rules.   Get the average age a player made his major league debut and compare to today.

Did that.   It’s posted elsewhere in this thread.   Don’t forget there were some convoluted rules at one time requiring players who got a bonus in excess of $4,000 to be on the major league roster for a while.    That led to a lot of premature debuts and then the players would be sent down when their required time was up.  

[MurphDogg]

Gunnar is out of the lineup tonight after going 0/4 with three strikeouts last night.