Baltimore Orioles Young Slugger Compares To Three-Time Silver Slugger Winner

The Baltimore Orioles could have a future star on their hands based on the similarities between him and a three-time Silver Slugger winner.

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Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson is the centerpiece of the team's current and future success. He won the AL Rookie of the Year in 2023 and he's an MVP contender heading towards Opening Day.

He's just 23 years old with three big league seasons already under his belt, it's hard to expect much more from him coming off a 9.1 bWAR campaign with regression being a possibly.

No matter what happens in 2025, he has already proven to be one of the best players in baseball.

One star is not enough to catapult a team to perennial contention, though.

The Orioles are 192-132 over the past two seasons, but for them to build on their recent success they need their young talent to grow up fast.

Right fielder Colton Crowser will turn 25 years old in March and he's well positioned to provide the Orioles with a boost from within.

Baltimore selected him with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2021 MLB draft. Cowser had a promising rookie campaign in 2024, slashing .242/.321/.447 with 24 homers and a 3.1 bWAR. He was the runner up in the AL Rookie of the Year race, his 101 points falling just short of New York Yankees pitcher Luis Gil's106.

That makes Cowser an Oriole to watch this spring, and over the next several years.

Projections and speculation are the best parts of spring training.

When trying to figure out what a player's ceiling is, organizations and evaluators will search for similar production and body types from previous players to use as a comparison.

For Cowser, a match in terms of size and draft capital paired with a strong rookie year would be Mark Teixeira, the Texas Rangers No. 5 overall pick in 2001.

Teixeira's playing size was 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds which is very comparable to Cowser's 6-foot-2, 220-pound frame. Teixeira slashed .259/.331/.480 with 26 homers and a 2.7 bWAR during his rookie year in 2003. He then followed that up with a surge in 2004, slashing .281/.370/.560 with 38 home runs and a 4.6 bWAR.

Teixeira had a 14-year Major League career finishing with 409 home runs and a 50.6 bWAR.

No historical parallel is perfect since the game of baseball has changed in many ways over the last 20 plus years. But Teixeira was a marquee player for a long time and had a very similar profile to Cowser.

If the Orioles can get a similar type leap from Cowser following his strong rookie season, that's one of their clearest paths to improvement in 2025.

Long term, it's safe to say Baltimore would sign up for a Teixeira-like career from their young outfielder.

Future stardom is the expectation when a team uses a top-five pick on a prospect, and after producing the way he did in 2024, that could be coming for Cowser.