Gunnar Henderson's Season-Long Decline Begs More Questions Of Orioles Player Development

Whatever the Baltimore Orioles are doing to try to curb what is now approaching a half-season slump for Gunnar Henderson isn’t working. It appears to be doing just the opposite.

It’s fair to suggest this coaching staff and front office lacks the wherewithal to correct it, and there are only but so many potential courses of action when your most talented player has been a drain on your lineup, your fielding (and at a critical position like shortstop) and on the base paths. It is a total and complete funk, which if anything, lately, looks even worse than a few weeks ago in several metrics.

This is hardly new for a front office that enabled the first player they ever selected, Adley Rutschman, to decline as a below-average player in every facet of the game for 1 ½ seasons leading into this one. A rookie skipper who can’t even say the right thing about an overachieving 21-year-old catcher or stand up for Henderson after getting intentionally drilled by the Padres seems particularly ill-equipped to do the right thing. Meanwhile, it’s clear that Henderson’s issues in each aspect of play are bleeding into the other.

It’s a collective meltdown.

Tuesday night, at the start of a critical road trip, after leadoff double by Taylor Ward against one of the better starters in the American League (Logan Gilbert) who you’d best get to early, Henderson struck out swinging – far too often the case this season. In his prior game, Sunday (the O’s, 34-40, were off Monday for travel to Seattle) he committed errors on successive chances in the 9th inning – one fielding and one throwing – amid another rough afternoon at the plate. He’s been a threat to get picked off far too frequently when he does manage to get on base.

But most distressing of all, he is just the latest highly-drafted, once top prospect who seems totally lost as to how to get to where he once was. As you listened to him speak with reporters from the visitor’s clubhouse at T-Mobile Stadium at around midnight back in Baltimore, his tone and expressions seemed even more profound than another 0-for-4 night in the batter’s box.

“Speaking for myself you have to (turn the page),” Henderson said. “It’s unbelievably frustrating, because you thought you were putting in the right work to get the results to show, but they haven’t really showed up. It’s super frustrating, but something that happens in baseball. It’s the hardest sport in the world for a season.”

Why isn’t that work paying off?

“I have zero clue,” Henderson said. “I feel like I’ve been seeing the ball great for about for two weeks now. Don’t know really what to tell you.”

This is a cry for help from someone who had the toolkit to be a perpetual MVP contender and was dubbed someone who could be a 40/40 guy maybe more than once. He was apparently battling lots of injuries last season, but even fresh and healthy this season has been in rapid decline.

This is looking like Adley 2.0.

“I think he’s really into the grind part – sophomore, junior where everything doesn’t come as easy and you’re not playing with house money.,” former manager Buck Showalter told me on “The Daily Flock Show,” this week. ”There are expectations of you and requirements and now all of a sudden it gets to be more of a grind, that constant grind … They all go through those periods, but the prolonged ones bother me.”

Buck thinks Gunnar will ultimately “be fine,” but you couldn’t help but think he was baffled about why no course corrections have come to this point, and he certainly alluded to the Orioles falling into drafting players of a certain type with too many similar attributes (including mentality and personality traits that you can’t run through a computer). All of which might have something to do with this rebuild going so horribly off the rails since Mike Elias declared “liftoff” in August 2022.

How Bad Is It?

Batting: Henderson enters play Wednesday with a WAR of 1.2; this is someone whose bat, on average, has been good for 6+ wins a season. His OPS+ is 97 (league average is 100) and he is striking out 24% of the time and walking just 8%. A player with his attributes getting on base just 29% of the time just can’t happen.

He is slugging just .375 with RISP. He hasn’t been better than league average in any month this season, which speaks to his overall malaise at the plate despite the presence of free-agent slugger Pete Alonso, who was supposed to be the elixir to lift this core of players, now almost all not so young and very much in their prime.

Fielding: His elite range and athleticism allow him to get to balls others don’t and keep him just outside the top 10 in some outs above average metrics. But accurate throws have been an issue his entire career, he is booting routine balls and failing to cover the bag at times and out of position on relay throws. It’s been low IQ too often, which is not the norm for him and speaks to the depth of these issues.

He’s 19th among 22 qualified shortstops in Fangraphs Defensive Runs Saved (-3) and dead last in runs saved above average on double plays. He’s failed to tag lead runners and doesn’t seem to trust that second-baseman Jackson Holliday will be where he needs to be and do what he’s supposed to do on those chances, nor should he.

Baserunning: Henderson has just six steals, in part because he’s never getting on base. He’s been caught stealing four times and picked off twice in the same game and then again once a few days later and damn near a bunch times more. The lack of confidence is dulling the impact of his supreme speed and the all-out hustle we’ve become accustomed to has suffered some.

Henderson is somehow 8th on the Orioles – and 243rd in baseball – in STACAST’s Net Bases Gained metric (sum of advances gained or outs created assigned to the runner). He’s behind Tyler O’Neill, who cannot move, and Alonso, who busts his hump but is crazy slow. Again, this cannot happen and speaks to those in charge having no idea how to provide human communication and teaching skills to aid players.

What Should Orioles Do?

Call me old school, but a few days to sit and watch might be order. Of course Elias has built a team devoid of MLB shortstops throughout his entire org despite trying to draft nothing but them for years, so that’s an issue. Tell Blaze Alexander to do it a few days in a row to mix things up.

An off day for the entire team to travel is different than watching nine innings from the dugout and observing and maybe catching your breath. When I asked Buck about sitting him he said:

“It’s like a parent letting your kid fail; it hurts to watch him but you know it’s something they’ve got to go through. But at the same time, if it’s hurting the team as a manager you’re going, ‘Okay what’s the solution here?’ Because you are in charge of winning games. It’s a tough one. It’s a tough one.”

He didn’t slam the door shut.

And with this being such a grind, and Henderson always wanting to work his way through it, perhaps less is more. Make Adley actually catch five days a week for Gunnar can DH more and try to get back to focusing on getting on base and being a weapon. It’s something they leaned into during Rutschmans epic decline (not that it worked well).

When you hear Henderson speaking about putting in the right work, as he did, are we sure he’s being guided properly in that regard? Do they know when to downshift and how to reach a player like him? Because the only one who is besting expectations is Samuel Basallo, who is just 21, and that’s who the novice skipper took aim at publicly.

At this point, a below league average season across the board for Henderson would not surprise me in the least. Back in February, as much as I knew this roster was amazingly flawed and good for maybe 82 wins ... I projected Henderson for a return to greatness, himself.

Would love to see how all of this would have played out with a proven and steady hand like Buck in charge, but Elias would never entertain anything or anyone whom he couldn’t completely control. So we got a third straight novice puppet, and as a result bad habits and poor form fester.

The Orioles' best players are suffering massively for it, again. Their bosses simply are not capable of the answers and solutions.

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