SARASOTA, Fla. – Before embarking on a 2023 season in which he’d claim American League Rookie of the Year honors, Gunnar Henderson adopted a puppy, a German Wirehaired Pointer named Chief.
He was a wily fellow when Henderson left him with family and didn’t see him again until the All-Star break. By season’s end, Henderson had ripped 28 home runs, played stellar defense at shortstop and third base and led the Baltimore Orioles in both WAR (6.2) and OPS (.814), a massive part of just their second AL East title since 1997.
Chief was getting ready, too.
The sporting dog was growing and learning, until Henderson returned to his Alabama home and, along with his younger brother, deployed Chief on quail and duck-hunting trips.
“He’s been getting his hunting in and his exercise in, which is the biggest thing,” says Henderson on a sleepy and rainy morning in Orioles training camp.
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“Because he’s very energetic.”
Nobody’s mistaking Henderson’s workplace for a kennel, but the canine metaphor is apt: As the Orioles continue rocketing from rebuild to powerhouse – 110 losses to 83 and finally 101 wins – the picks of the litter just keep coming.
When Adley Rutschman, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2019 draft and All-Star catcher, gazes about the clubhouse, he can see his not-so-distant past come to life. At 26, Rutschman is no codger, and he’s just four years removed from his first major league spring training.
Yet as the faces grow younger but no less talented, Rutschman can at once feel wistful about his past and quietly pumped about what’s coming.
“It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was right there,” says Rutschman, whose 2022 call-up marked a turning point in franchise history. “To be able to see those guys do the same thing and go through the same process is cool. It’s a great clubhouse atmosphere – guys are excited to come to the ballpark, excited to be here.
“The fact that we get an opportunity to do this all together and make another run at it this year is really exciting. Everybody’s bought in – it feels like a very close-knit clubhouse, which has been cool to see.
“It kind of just develops and grows.”
And for as great as Rutschman – 2022 Rookie of the Year runner-up – and Henderson are, the talent pipeline that executive vice president and GM Mike Elias has developed means you could be winning hardware one year, and somehow sharing headlines with even more talent the next.
A little loud at Holliday house
When the Orioles selected Jackson Holliday with the first overall pick in July 2022, Rutschman was already two months into his rookie season. Henderson would debut the next month.
Holliday was 17.
That Holliday’s already sharing a clubhouse with the two – and claiming their modern Oriole birthright of consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball – speaks to how quickly he moves.
While many 20-year-olds spent last month beginning their spring semester of college, Holliday got married, to longtime girlfriend Chloe Cox. A month after their West Palm Beach nuptials, he was in Orioles camp and quietly declaring he felt prepared to break camp with the team.
And why not? Holliday, USA TODAY Sports’ Minor League Player of the Year, had an absurd season, climbing four levels from low-A to Class AAA, all the while compiling video game numbers against players often several years his senior: A .323/.942/.499 slash line, 12 homers, 27 steals and 51 extra-base hits in 125 games.
Holliday has big hopes but also a realistic streak, calling baseball “an extremely difficult sport.” Yet it’s no easy feat already establishing his own rep beyond his father’s accomplishments: Matt Holliday spent 15 years in the big leagues, made seven All-Star teams, hit 316 home runs.
Jackson, born four months before his dad’s major league debut, saw almost all of it.
“You can definitely tell he’s spent his childhood in a locker room,” says Henderson. “He knows the game, knows how to be around everybody and it’s been really cool to see him go out there and work.
“Off the field, he’s a really great kid. I’ve got to spend time with him and it’s been really cool to hang out with him. I’m looking forward to sharing the field with him this year.”
Indeed, if there’s a sixth tool for these baby Birds, it might be fellowship. Henderson is always down for a fishing or hunting venture. Holliday, his father and his younger brother, Ethan – the consensus No. 1 prospect for the 2025 draft – are often posting hitting workouts held on their Oklahoma property to social media.
This offseason, Orioles outfielders Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad and prospects Anthony Servideo and John Rhodes were among those paying a visit to Holliday house to get their hacks in. Ethan makes out well: His older brother’s teammates leave a bat and batting gloves for the 6-4, 195-pound high school junior.
“A whole lot of guys able to come in and hang out and get to know. It was a really fun offseason,” says Holliday. Come spring training, he says, “it’s not the first time you’ve seen them since last year. That relationship has grown. You’re more comfortable with guys that you spend more time with and might be lucky enough to play with.
“It’s really cool for me to come back and say I was teammates with all these guys.”
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, entering his sixth year, has observed the group’s arc from prospects to draftees to big league debuts and, in some cases, stardom. They’ve in many cases grown up in front of him and grown closer in the process, in ways both very public – such as the “Homer Hose” dugout celebration – and more private.
“Just seeing how a lot of those guys have matured is fun to watch,” says Hyde, the reigning AL Manager of the Year. “Feels like we have a lot of guys getting married, having babies. Just to watch their maturation process on and off the field has been a lot of fun. It’s a real mature group.
“I think they’re all very close. They’ve become good friends either through the minor leagues or mini-camps or spring training.”
Now, the stakes are suddenly much higher – as is the chance at least some of the group gets broken up.
Talent show
The loss of closer Felix Bautista to Tommy John surgery meant the Orioles used what’s become their annual free agent chit – a one-year deal worth about $10 million – on veteran reliever Craig Kimbrel. Yet after a disappointing sweep at the hands of the eventual champion Texas Rangers in the AL Division Series, Elias wanted to augment the starting pitching, even before ace Kyle Bradish’s elbow injury emerged.
So the Orioles won the sweepstakes for former Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes, exchanging infielder Joey Ortiz and pitcher DL Hall with Milwaukee. For now, their quintet of Baseball America Top 100 prospects – Holliday (No. 1), catcher Samuel Basallo (No. 10), infielder Coby Mayo (No. 25), Cowser (No. 34) and Kjerstad (No. 41) would stay intact.
It’s starting to get crowded at the inn: Cowser and Kjerstad debuted last year, but neither has a path to a 2024 starting job, while Mayo finds Henderson and Holliday wedged up the middle, with veterans Ramon Urías and Jorge Mateo and second-year player Jordan Westburg also around the infield.
At least Mayo – who hit 29 home runs between AA and AAA – knows he’s on the right train.
“When I got drafted, with Jordan and Gunnar the draft before me, I always felt I was on Gunnar’s path a little bit throughout the years,” says Mayo, 22, a hulking 6-5, 230-pounder taken in the fourth round in 2020. “It’s a good thing, the success they’ve had – they trust those guys, they’re young, and they can go up and make an impact.
“Especially Gunnar – 22 years old and Rookie of the Year. It’s impressive and shows how good a job the organization has done.”
Henderson might be the ultimate success story of the Elias regime – Rutschman was a relative no-brainer top overall pick in Elias’s first draft, while Henderson, chosen 42nd overall, wasn’t on many teams’ first-round radar.
He split time at third and shortstop last year and might ultimately cede short to Holliday. Yet while Henderson remains ever-polite – perhaps the “sirs” and “ma’ams” he peppered his speech with are just a bit less frequent – he also has the equity of a terrific rookie season in the bank.
“You can tell the subtle confidence that that gives him,” says Rutschman. “Knowing the dynamic, knowing what his role is, knowing how he can help out everyone else behind him. He exudes that subtle confidence that guys are willing to get behind.
“He sets the tone with the way he works as well.”
It doesn’t hurt when there’s a litter of high-pedigree talent behind him, all getting a little bit – or a lot – better every year.
“It’s hard not to be optimistic about it. They’re such a fun group,” says Elias. “I think the spirit of the team is going to be very similar.
“I can’t imagine we’re not going to have some young guys take steps forward.’