‘That’s the kind of player to build a team around’: How Gunnar Henderson became an early AL MVP candidate
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
BALTIMORE — Clarke Schmidt made only one mistake Monday, and it wasn’t a bad pitch. The New York Yankees starter thought Gunnar Henderson looked awkward fouling off two straight knuckle-curves, so he threw the Baltimore Orioles leadoff hitter a third one. It was sharper than the previous two — not exactly where he wanted it, but close.
With Schmidt’s stuff, particularly crisp on this balmy night, close is usually good enough. Not against Henderson.
Henderson crushed the baseball 112.3 mph, 410 feet over the tall right-field wall at Camden Yards for a leadoff home run. The laser gave the Orioles a lead they wouldn’t fumble in their series opener against the rival Yankees, and it made history: The 22-year-old shortstop became the youngest player in Major League Baseball history with 10 home runs before the start of May.
“That’s the kind of player,” Schmidt said, “to build a team around.”
For several years, baseball talk in Baltimore was about the future. The farm system represented hope while the big league club floundered with rosters designed to lose. The Orioles endured three seasons with at least 108 losses. They went six consecutive years without a postseason berth.
Then last season, results finally flipped. They won 101 games and their first division title since 2014.
Henderson was in the thick of the turnaround, starring for the resurgent franchise en route to winning American League Rookie of the Year. The mustached, mulleted dynamo mirrors the Orioles’ trajectory over the past half-decade — from promising rebuild to ready for prime time to finally, perhaps, a perennial force.
“I want to ultimately be one of the best players to play the game,” Henderson said. “I feel like that’s how I’ve carried myself.”
Now the everyday shortstop — he split time primarily between shortstop and third base as a rookie — Henderson is garnering MVP buzz as the Orioles settle into their unfamiliar status as AL East favorites. They passed their first stiff test of the season this week, taking three of four games from the Yankees, their main competition in the AL East so far, in a series that featured an electricity at Camden Yards rarely generated this early in a season.
Henderson began the series with some thump, but pitching dominated the four-game set. The Orioles, whose bullpen limped into the series after blowing two games to the Oakland Athletics, held the Yankees to just six runs over the four days. Luis Gil carried the Yankees to their lone win, tossing a career-high 6⅓ innings in a 2-0 victory Wednesday. Other than that, the Orioles rolled.
“It’s still early,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde cautioned after the Orioles’ series-closing 7-2 win Thursday.
It was the O’s 16th straight series win against an AL East foe, a date that stretches back more than a year. It’s why this year, even coming off a disappointing Division Series sweep at the hands of the Texas Rangers last fall, expectations are different in Baltimore.
The Orioles were among the preseason favorites to win the World Series. They’re first in their division, with the best record in the American League. The O’s lead the majors in home runs — by seven — and rank second in runs. The pitching staff this week received reinforcements when starters Kyle Bradish and John Means were activated from the injured list. Bradish, fourth in AL Cy Young voting in 2023, made his season debut Thursday, holding the Yankees to one run over 4⅔ innings.
There are still players to develop and prospects to incorporate at the major league level. But after years building to this point, to annual contention, they have a chance to bring the franchise’s first championship to Baltimore since 1983.
“The future is now,” Orioles reliever Danny Coulombe said. “We’re in our window already.”
Adley Rutschman, who joined the big league club in 2022, is now one of the sport’s premier catchers. Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser — both under 26 — have excelled. The lineup is so deep that Heston Kjerstad, a top-100 prospect, has mostly been stuck on the bench since mashing his way to a promotion on April 23. Then there’s Jackson Holliday, the consensus No. 1 prospect in the sport, back in Triple-A — for now — after a rough big league introduction.
Coulombe, at 34 the third-oldest member of the Orioles, recalled looking around during spring training and marveling at the nameplates above the lockers.
“I remember being like, ‘There is so much talent in this organization,'” Coulombe said. “It’s a lot. Gunnar, obviously, is probably the best one. It’s hard to deny that.”
The Los Angeles Dodgers drafted Coulombe, a left-hander, in the 25th round in 2012. The Dodgers’ first-round pick that year was a high school shortstop named Corey Seager. Henderson, Coulombe said, reminds him of Seager — but with speed. A big, left-handed hitter. The drive, the preparation. The way the game looks so easy to him.
Henderson’s other teammates see it too.
“He always wants to improve and that’s what separates one ballplayer from another — a star from a regular player,” Orioles veteran infielder Jorge Mateo said in Spanish. “To me, he’s a star already. And I know he’s going to keep improving.”
Henderson’s rise wasn’t linear. A year ago, he was scuffling in his first extended stint as a major leaguer. He slashed .201/.332/.370 over the season’s first two months, then the 2019 second-round draft pick turned it around in June. Henderson finished the season batting .255 with 28 home runs and an .814 OPS.
“It’s like, got to go up there and you got to trick yourself into having that self-confidence because you just go through it every single day and it really beats you down mentally,” Henderson said. “It’s definitely tough.”
There’s been no slow start to overcome this year. On Friday, Henderson — who slashed .291/.356/.624 in March/April — was named American League Player of the Month.
“I don’t know what tool he doesn’t have,” Hyde said. “He’s doing a little bit of everything, and he’s got the physical ability and the mental ability to be as good as there can be.”
Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights — with an eight-year extension in place, sources told ESPN on Monday. Forward Nicolas Roy will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return.
Marner’s new deal has a $12 million average annual value, according to sources. Marner, 28, was the biggest name entering Tuesday’s NHL free agency, and multiple teams were hoping to make pitches. Marner was the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer last season with 102 points — 36 more than the next-closest free agent. The winger was drafted by his hometown Maple Leafs with the No. 4 pick in 2015.
The Maple Leafs knew that Marner was looking to test free agency at the end of the season. Over the past few days, Toronto worked with Vegas, which was Marner’s preferred destination, on a trade. The Maple Leafs held Marner’s rights until just before midnight Tuesday.
Had Marner become an unrestricted free agent, he couldn’t have signed a deal for more than seven years.
Marner finished a six-year deal that paid him $10.9 million annually. Marner, who played for Team Canada at Four Nations and likely will make their Olympic team, has 221 goals and 741 points in nine NHL seasons.
Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has stayed busy this week, re-signing John Tavares and Matthew Knies while trading for Utah forward Matias Maccelli earlier Monday.
Roy, 28, is a center who is entering Year 4 of a five-year deal that pays him $3 million annually.
Ahead of the Marner trade, the Golden Knights created cap space by sending defenseman Nicolas Hague to the Nashville Predators on Monday.
The deal makes Marner the highest-paid player on Vegas, however, center Jack Eichel ($10 million AAV) is entering the final year of his contract and is eligible to sign an extension this summer. The Golden Knights might not be done this offseason. According to sources, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is expected to go on long-term injured reserve, which could create more flexibility.
Sign-and-trades ahead of free agency are becoming a trend for NHL teams that know they will not sign their coveted player; last season, the Carolina Hurricanes dealt Jake Guentzel‘s rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning before he signed a seven-year deal.
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Ryan S. Clark
Hours after re-signing Aaron Ekblad, the Florida Panthers kept another integral piece of their Stanley Cup team by re-signing Brad Marchand to a six-year contract extension, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.
Marchand’s deal has an average annual value of $5.25 million, sources told Kaplan.
Coming to terms with Ekblad on an eight-year extension worth $6.1 million annually left the Panthers with what PuckPedia projected to be $4.9 million in salary cap space.
There was the possibility that Marchand, 37, could have left the Panthers for a more lucrative offer elsewhere considering there were teams that had more than enough cap space to sign him.
Instead? Marchand, who arrived ahead of the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, appears as if he will remain in South Florida for the rest of his career.
Acquiring defenseman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks and then adding Marchand were two decisions made by Panthers general manager Bill Zito with the intent of seeing the Panthers win a second consecutive Stanley Cup as part of a run that now has included three straight Cup Final appearances.
Marchand, who was a pending UFA entering the final day before free agency begins Tuesday, used the 2025 postseason to further cement why the Panthers and other teams throughout the NHL would still seek his services. He scored 10 goals and finished with 20 points in 23 playoff games.
For all the contributions he made, his greatest came during the Cup Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.
Marchand, who previously won a Cup with the Bruins back in 2011, opened the series with a goal in the first three games. That includes the two goals he scored in the Panthers’ 5-4 double-overtime win to tie the series with his second being the game-winning salvo.
He scored two more goals in a 5-2 win in Game 5 that allowed the Panthers to take a 3-1 series lead before returning to Sunrise, Florida, where they closed out the series with an emphatic 5-1 win.
Capturing a consecutive title created questions about whether the Panthers can win a third in a row. But there was the understanding that it might be difficult given there was only so much salary cap space to re-sign Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand.
Knowing there was a chance they could lose one, or more, of them, Zito laid the foundation to retain the trio. He began by signing Bennett to an eight-year contract worth $8 million annually on June 27 before using Monday to sign Ekblad and Marchand.
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Ryan S. Clark
Ivan Provorov decided to forgo free agency, with the veteran defenseman finalizing a seven-year extension Monday worth $8.5 million annually to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets, sources told ESPN, confirming earlier reports.
With free agency slated to start Tuesday, the 28-year-old was one of the most notable defenseman who had a chance to hit the open market.
Provorov’s decision to stay with the Blue Jackets comes shortly after it was reported that Aaron Ekblad also avoided free agency by agreeing to an eight-year extension to remain with the Florida Panthers. That now leaves players such as Vladislav Gavrikov, Ryan Lindgren, and Dmitry Orlov among the more prominent pending UFAs who could be available should they fail to strike a deal with their current teams.
Retaining Provorov comes months after a season that witnessed the Blue Jackets shed the title of being a rebuilding franchise to one that could challenge for the playoffs in 2025-26.
Four consecutive seasons without the playoffs created the idea that the 2024-25 campaign could be another challenging one. But a six-game winning streak in January saw Columbus post a 22-17-6 record to create the belief that a turnaround could be in order.
The Jackets closed the season with another six-game winning streak but fell short of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, which went to the Montreal Canadiens by two points.
Provorov would finish with seven goals and 33 points in 82 games while his 23 minutes, 21 seconds in average ice time was second behind Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski.
Re-signing Provorov comes in an offseason that saw the Blue Jackets also strengthen their bottom-six forward corps by adding Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche.
PuckPedia projects that the Blue Jackets now have $20.957 million in cap space ahead of free agency.
TSN was first to report news of Provorov’s decision.
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