Gunnar Henderson 2023

[btdart20]

6 minutes ago, Too Tall said:

It's hard to be patient when rooting for The O's. Patience is in short supply on here. My wife of 61 years has a new favorite Oriole. Got to get her a Gunner shirt. She loves the youth, hair, and particularly his approach at the plate. He will to be good. Book it. Based on no statistic at all except my wife is NEVER WRONG!

Impressive!  And I'm glad she's in Gunnar's corner with that track record!

[Billy F-Face3]

14 hours ago, wildcard said:

He doesn't look like he is having fun.

I noticed that earlier in the month, and I found myself wondering if he has something going on in his personal life that has been distracting him or taking away the joy of Baseball. A girlfriend issue, perhaps? One can only wonder. I know when I was very young and in deep with my girlfriend (at the time), and found out she had to move away, I stopped caring about playing baseball and my performance suffered.

In any case, this is all conjecture and tin-foil level mind gymnastics.

[BohKnowsBmore]

9 hours ago, Too Tall said:

It's hard to be patient when rooting for The O's. Patience is in short supply on here. My wife of 61 years has a new favorite Oriole. Got to get her a Gunner shirt. She loves the youth, hair, and particularly his approach at the plate. He will to be good. Book it. Based on no statistic at all except my wife is NEVER WRONG!

This is awkward, but are we married to the same woman?

[joelala]

12 hours ago, Billy F-Face3 said:

I noticed that earlier in the month, and I found myself wondering if he has something going on in his personal life that has been distracting him or taking away the joy of Baseball. A girlfriend issue, perhaps? One can only wonder. I know when I was very young and in deep with my girlfriend (at the time), and found out she had to move away, I stopped caring about playing baseball and my performance suffered.

In any case, this is all conjecture and tin-foil level mind gymnastics.

I remember him having a very stoic demeanor even last year when he was playing well, though. I distinctly recall a post game, on field  interview after he’d had a walk-off hit and was talking about it with no emotion and Kevin Brown prodded about having fun. That did get Gunnar to crack a big smile. 
 

That said, yea, he looks very heavy this year emotionally. 

[interloper]

One month in and Gunnar is sort of refusing to bust out.

.189/.348./.311/.659 with only 5 XBH.

I think it's coming, but I also think he's going to start seeing a bit less playing time against lefties because the Orioles are trying to win games with matchups. 

To me he looks a bit stiff up there, but I thought that last year too. Just kind of how he looks I think. 

[Moose Milligan]

His start is one of the disappointing parts of the season so far.  Love the batting eye and the walks but when he's swinging, it's not good.  I'd even settle for some Ryan Mountcastle bad luck from him.  

[DirtyBird]

He’s hurting his trade value

[interloper]

I guess the fact that we're winning this many games with Gunnar being mostly a non-factor is a silver lining. We're going to need him in a tough May schedule though. 

[Frobby]

My sense is, one day it will click and he will explode.  In the meantime, I can live with the .348 OBP while he figures it out.  I’m disappointed with his start but still think it’ll come.   His approach is good, maybe needs to tweak his two-strike approach a bit.  His timing hasn’t been there but I’m still expecting it will.  

[jdwilde1]

9 minutes ago, Frobby said:

My sense is, one day it will click and he will explode.  In the meantime, I can live with the .348 OBP while he figures it out.  I’m disappointed with his start but still think it’ll come.   His approach is good, maybe needs to tweak his two-strike approach a bit.  His timing hasn’t been there but I’m still expecting it will.  

This is what I think happens.  The fact that he’s drawing walks at his current rate despite his age and hitting struggles is very impressive.  And once he starts producing the line-up will really have some length. It’s going to be a really fun summer as long as we can get some adequate starting pitching.

[sportsfan8703]

28 minutes ago, Frobby said:

My sense is, one day it will click and he will explode.  In the meantime, I can live with the .348 OBP while he figures it out.  I’m disappointed with his start but still think it’ll come.   His approach is good, maybe needs to tweak his two-strike approach a bit.  His timing hasn’t been there but I’m still expecting it will.  

He will be alright as long as he doesn't get wildly frustrated.  I think it's just a mini "sophomore slump" combined that we've ran into a bunch of LH SP early on.  Meaning he's had to face some tough lefties, or sit.  Both of which could mess up a 21 year old.  

[HandsomeQuack]

Looking at his stats re: swing decisions, he only swings at 19.8% of pitches outside the zone (league average 31.5%), but when he does swing on those pitches he only makes contact 39.5% of the time (league average 62.2%). In his time in the bigs last year, he made contact on 60.8% of outside-the-zone swings.

Additionally, the first pitch of his PAs is a strike 67.4% of the time (league average 60.5%). I wonder how much of that is the book being out on him that he won't swing, and as a result he falls behind 0-1 a lot.

It's been such a weird start for him. With a little less swing-and-miss he could be in the .250/.400/.500 neighborhood. But he takes so many pitches and he can't hit with 2 strikes.

[interloper]

Just now, HandsomeQuack said:

Looking at his stats re: swing decisions, he only swings at 19.8% of pitches outside the zone (league average 31.5%), but when he does swing on those pitches he only makes contact 39.5% of the time (league average 62.2%). In his time in the bigs last year, he made contact on 60.8% of outside-the-zone swings.

Additionally, the first pitch of his PAs is a strike 67.4% of the time (league average 60.5%). I wonder how much of that is the book being out on him that he won't swing, and as a result he falls behind 0-1 a lot.

It's been such a weird start for him. With a little less swing-and-miss he could be in the .250/.400/.500 neighborhood. But he takes so many pitches and he can't hit with 2 strikes.

What's weird is they've already talked to him about being more aggressive early in the count. It seems like he has been a bit, but it's not having much effect yet. Or those first pitch strikes are just good pitches. 

[Yossarian]

He looks to me like he is over- thinking his hitting approach.  Like he is being way too picky and trying to draw walks and is constantly getting behind in the count.  He has a good eye and the physical skills to hit, I think he just needs to be a little looser at the plate and just hit. 

[interloper]

Just now, Yossarian said:

He looks to me like he is over- thinking his hitting approach.  Like he is being way too picky and trying to draw walks and is constantly getting behind in the count.  He has a good eye and the physical skills to hit, I think he just needs to be a little looser at the plate and just hit. 

Of course, he probably knows that, so he's like "ok, I'm gonna let it rip this AB" and then swings at a change up out of the zone to put himself in a hole. Ah, baseball.