Gunnar Henderson 2023

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

No one is disputing that was an awful play. The question is whether Gunnar has made enough of those to justify moving him off SS. As another data point, JJ averaged about 8.5 errors/year for us. Some other playoff team SS, 2023 and career high:

 

Seager 6 (career high 18)

Pena 12 (19)

Bichette 8 (24)

Franco 9 (9)

Arcia 7 (20)

Crawford 14 (14)

Turner 14 (16)

Adames 12 (17)

Rojas 6 (11)

Tons of noise there but Gunnar is in the range where we want him to be. I do think he has a tendency to airmail his throws and that's something he needs to work on. Other than that he is playing the position at a high level.

Is errors/season the best way to go?

[baltfan]

15 minutes ago, Three Run Homer said:

Did Gunnar even need to spin in order to make a throw?  Why didn't he just plant his left foot and turn towards first base while throwing? 

It was a terrible play and it cost us the game.  To be fair, he won us the game on Friday.    

He did it because of his momentum. Ripken did it all of the time.  Here are some examples. 

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxLKOGA-MN6L_VzQr05NdoU9pjH3wy2tYO?si=8xgOM1bwiRHkeT3z

 

[panick]

3 hours ago, Alasdaire said:

Gunnar made the kind of error today that would give any manager night terrors going into October. Tie game in the ninth inning, and Gunnar takes a ground ball that many shortstops turn into an out into a questionable spin move wild throw into the dugout to gift the Rockies the equivalent of a leadoff double. A couple more ground balls to advance and score the runner and the O's lose by one.

I seriously wonder how comfortable Hyde is with Gunnar at short in the playoffs. Is it unfair to expect that a big league shortstop knows the pitcher on the mound (Yennier) is an extreme ground ball pitcher and so putting that ball in your pocket or at least sacrificing some mustard on the throw for the sake of accuracy are acceptable outcomes because it preserves the double play? Shortstop has far more responsibilities than third. That position is more than just physicality, and a rookie is prone to making mental mistakes. 10 errors on the year for Gunnar.

This is probably why Holliday was drafted.

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Is errors/season the best way to go?

No, that's kind of my point. OP is saying that one error should be disqualifying. 

[baltfan]

29 minutes ago, panick said:

This is probably why Holliday was drafted.

No he was drafted because they thought he was the best player available.  Gunnar’s OAA in his first yer is over  60th percentile.  Last year Witt Jr was around the bottom 1 percentile.  This year he is at the very top.  Guys get better. 

[SilverRocket]

This is the first error he's made in almost a month. He was poor on defense the first couple months but has really picked it up. I'll happily take the current rate. It was just unfortunate timing.

Edited August 28, 2023 by SilverRocket

[Sanity Check]

2 hours ago, emmett16 said:

I'm gonna give him a pass and chalk it up to a learning experience.  He doesn't seem like the stubborn know-it-all type.  He screwed up for sure and I bet he'd be the first person to tell you.  

THIS!!  Completely agree.  Learning experience and it happens.  To me, he tried to make an athletic play instead of a fundamental one....he didn't plant and fire.  It was sloppy, yes, but I think he learned from it, and genuinely feels bad about it, and will be coached up on it.

It's not like every one of us - except maybe @Frobby - has never made a mistake at work, either in judgment or execution.  Learning from them, and not repeating them is the key.

Just kidding Frobby, but I imagine if there was a poll about which Hangouter probably never made a mistake at work, I think you'd win   ...and that's a compliment.

[Sanity Check]

3 hours ago, Alasdaire said:

10 errors isn't a little either.

All due respect, but I think if you brush the error that Gunnar made today under the rug as just another play in a 162 game season, you're too detached from the reality of in-game situations. That play directly led to the Orioles losing the game in a way that was preventable. I don't see it as just another data point, and I highly doubt the managers/players do either.

If you are perfect, then I guess you have a right to legitimately feel this way.  I didn't like the error either, but this feels like an overreaction similar to McKenna dropping one fly ball.

We've won games because of errors, and we'll lose some.  This is one that we lost.  We're a team of humans, it happens, and we move on and pledge to do better.

Stepping down off of my soapbox.

[Oriole1940]

I  almost never predict on things, but this  debate about an error costing a game is so unworthy of people who claim to be  astute baseball fans  that  somebody  needs to speak up on the side  of common sense. Of course it cost a game, and not one of the members of the HOF can say one of their errors did not cost a game  somewhere down the line.  I use HOF as an example because I expect Gunnar will one day be a member of that group.  A person can say that one of a dozen things also cost the game ,  so to blame it only on one player is absurd.  

[deward]

3 hours ago, Alasdaire said:

10 errors isn't a little either.

All due respect, but I think if you brush the error that Gunnar made today under the rug as just another play in a 162 game season, you're too detached from the reality of in-game situations. That play directly led to the Orioles losing the game in a way that was preventable. I don't see it as just another data point, and I highly doubt the managers/players do either.

I promise you that Hyde and the rest of the team aren't nearly as worked up about it as you seem to be. 

[Tony-OH]

28 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

THIS!!  Completely agree.  Learning experience and it happens.  To me, he tried to make an athletic play instead of a fundamental one....he didn't plant and fire.  It was sloppy, yes, but I think he learned from it, and genuinely feels bad about it, and will be coached up on it.

It's not like every one of us - except maybe @Frobby - has never made a mistake at work, either in judgment or execution.  Learning from them, and not repeating them is the key.

Just kidding Frobby, but I imagine if there was a poll about which Hangouter probably never made a mistake at work, I think you'd win   ...and that's a compliment.

I agree. It's hard to be too hard on him because he's been a great player this year and have won several games. It was a poor play and probably one in the future he will not do in that situation. Tough game for him, but he'll win a whole lot more games than he will contribute to the loss.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

18 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I agree. It's hard to be too hard on him because he's been a great player this year and have won several games. It was a poor play and probably one in the future he will not do in that situation. Tough game for him, but he'll win a whole lot more games than he will contribute to the loss.

We have to remember Gunnar a year into his MLB career is still the third youngest player in the American League. Gunnar's rookie season fares quite comparably to Cal Ripken's 1982 ROY season

We all knew what Cal Ripken did the next year in 1983. Not saying Gunnar is going to make that level of improvement, but the version of him we see in 2024 should be improved over what we're seeing now.

[Alasdaire]

To be clear, I didn't say that Gunnar should be moved off of short. I asked what Hyde thinks about Gunnar at short. Especially after today when the worst-case scenario occurred.

Why has Mateo not only remained in Baltimore but also continued to get starts? Gunnar is in the lineup every single day, but he's not at short every day. Doesn't that imply Hyde has questions about Gunnar's defense? Baseball managers tend to be the types who value experience much more than those of us who post here.

As to people saying that all players make errors, there are errors and then there are errors. This error reflected on Gunnar's inexperience. It simply isn't worth risking a throw with that degree of difficulty given the situation (one-run game with a ground ball pitcher on the mound). It wasn't simply that he let a grounder go through his legs or dropped a line drive; he set himself up for failure with the route he took to the ball and then compounded the mistake by making a low-probability throw. I don't think Mateo (or most veterans; please don't pigeonhole all of your angst about Jorge on me) makes an error that looks so ridiculous. Again, the sort of things that managers care about.

[Alasdaire]

3 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

No one is disputing that was an awful play. The question is whether Gunnar has made enough of those to justify moving him off SS. As another data point, JJ averaged about 8.5 errors/year for us. Some other playoff team SS, 2023 and career high:

 

Seager 6 (career high 18)

Pena 12 (19)

Bichette 8 (24)

Franco 9 (9)

Arcia 7 (20)

Crawford 14 (14)

Turner 14 (16)

Adames 12 (17)

Rojas 6 (11)

Tons of noise there but Gunnar is in the range where we want him to be. I do think he has a tendency to airmail his throws and that's something he needs to work on. Other than that he is playing the position at a high level.

Gunnar isn't even in the top 30 shortstops in the MLB by total chances at shortstop. He has 182 there compared to 310 for Seager, 470 for Pena, 324 for Bichette, 416 for Arcia etc. And most shortstops get far more chances than most third basemen plus the higher degree of difficulty. So if despite all of that Gunnar still has more raw errors than some of those guys, it doesn't exactly reflect well on him.

[Aristotelian]

8 minutes ago, Alasdaire said:

Gunnar isn't even in the top 30 shortstops in the MLB by total chances at shortstop. He has 182 there compared to 310 for Seager, 470 for Pena, 324 for Bichette, 416 for Arcia etc. And most shortstops get far more chances than most third basemen plus the higher degree of difficulty. So if despite all of that Gunnar still has more raw errors than some of those guys, it doesn't exactly reflect well on him.

He has 6 errors at short.