After being not ranked at all in MLB Pipelines’ top 100 prospects at the end of 2021 Gunnar Henderson’s 2022 campaign caused him to rocket up the rankings to finish first overall heading into 2023. The 21-year-old started his 2022 campaign at AA slashing a .312/.452/.573 playing in 47 games at that level before being promoted to AAA where he continued to rake putting up a .288/.390/.504 over 65 games before finishing the season with the Orioles. During Gunnars 34 game cup of coffee with the birds he put up quite inspiring numbers slashing .259/.348/.440 which is good enough for a 123 OPS+ while still retaining his rookie status for this upcoming season. Henderson is one of the favorites for rookie of the year if not the favorite and is probably currently the second-best player on the team behind Adley Rutschman, if I was the Orioles I would try to lock them up to extensions as soon as possible.
The former 2nd round pick can play all over the infield though I would expect the O’s to keep him to primarily third base and shortstop this season. He truly is an all-around five-tool player with MLB grading his hit/hit for power/running/arm/fielding as at least above average and will be one of many reasons to watch the birds this upcoming season. To back this up, according to stat cast and Baseball Savant his max exit velocity(73rd percentile), sprint speed(91st percentile), and arm strength(74th percentile) were all well above average showcasing why he is #1 on a lot of prospect lists. Overall last season during the limited time he put up a .8 WAR according to Fangraphs and a .9 WAR according to Baseball Reference and projects to be a 5 WAR player for this season as a 21-22-year-old. The biggest area for concern for him is that if his strikeout problems return this season as his strikeout % last season was 25.8% which is a little higher than average but still an improvement over the 30+% mark he put up in 2021.
Heading into 2023 his spot on the roster is secured and should be an everyday player as long as he does not struggle mightily this season. ZiPS has him projected for a .259/.354/.458 season, hitting 24 home runs, having close to 100 RBIs, and putting up a 5WAR which I think is very doable for him. I see him being an all-star next year and a near lock to win the rookie of the year award which will be necessary for the birds to reach the postseason as the lack of offseason acquisitions puts added pressure on the young players to step up now that the rebuild is officially over. This upcoming season I see him establishing himself as a key piece on the team and further cementing the 2019 draft as one of the greatest in franchise history between him, Adley Rutschman, Kyle Stowers, and Joey Ortiz.