{"id":71953,"date":"2024-04-30T16:45:51","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T20:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=71953"},"modified":"2024-04-30T16:17:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T20:17:39","slug":"orioles-gunnar-henderson-al-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/30\/orioles-gunnar-henderson-al-mvp\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles Rookie of the Year on Pace For the American League MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just one season removed from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/11\/13\/rookie-of-the-year-mlb\/\" target=\"_self\">unanimously winning the AL Rookie of the Year<\/a>, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson is on pace for his first career MVP.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Henderson continued his historic start by hitting his 10th homer this season in Baltimore\u2019s April 29th win over the Yankees. The 22-year-old became the youngest player to record double-digit home runs before May 1st, surpassing <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/storytr01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trevor Story<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who was 23. He is also the third player in Orioles history with 10 or more before May 1st.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;He&#8217;s 22 years old,&#8221; Orioles manager <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/hydebr99.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brandon Hyde<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> said afterward. &#8220;It&#8217;s pretty scary how good this guy&#8217;s going to be. How good he is already.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hendegu01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gunnar Henderson<\/a> unanimously won the American League Rookie of the Year in his first full season in the majors last season. The star shortstop finished the 2023 season batting .255\/.325\/.489 with 28 homers, 82 RBIs and a .814 OPS. His strong rookie campaign earned him his first career Silver Slugger and placed him eighth in MVP voting last season. Now, the 22-year-old is making his case to unanimously win the American League MVP in his second major league season.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">10 HR before the month of May at age 22 or younger:<\/p>\n<p>Gunnar Henderson &#8230; that&#8217;s the list \ud83d\udd25<\/p>\n<p>(H\/T <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SlangsOnSports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@SlangsOnSports<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3tcZq0jcQK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/3tcZq0jcQK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB (@MLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB\/status\/1785376214078591030?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Gunnar Henderson is In a League of His Own<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Henderson has been one of the league\u2019s hottest hitters to begin his sophomore season. Through his first 28 games, Henderson is batting .289\/.352\/.632 with 10 homers, 23 RBI and a .983 OPS. He leads the American League in slugging percentage (.632), runs (25), and extra-base hits (16). His 10 home runs are tied for first with Angels center fielder <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/troutmi01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mike Trout<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the AL and MLB. Henderson has hit four homers in his last six games and seven in the past 13.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For reference, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ohtansh01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shohei Ohtani<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who won his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/11\/16\/the-2023-al-and-nl-mvps\/\" target=\"_self\">second MVP last season<\/a>, was batting .292 with six homers, 17 runs and 17 RBI through his first 27 games.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Henderson has the third-best odds for American League MVP behind Yankees outfielder <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sotoju01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Juan Soto<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and Royals shortstop <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wittbo02.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bobby Witt Jr.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> He edges them both in home runs and slugging percentage this season but trails them in every other statistical category.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Orioles In a Heavyweight Boxing Match<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His contributions have helped the Orioles now 18-10 take back their lead in the AL East from the Yankees. How Henderson plays through Baltimore\u2019s next 134 games will determine where the star shortstop finishes in AL MVP voting. But at the very least, Gunnar Henderson is on pace for his first All-Star Game nomination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Any time you can face a lineup like that, especially in the division, you know you&#8217;re going to be in for a dogfight,&#8221; said Grayson Rodriguez, &#8220;and that&#8217;s what it was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This could be the start of plenty of thrilling matchups as the rivals battle for the AL East crown.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: \u00a9 Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just one season removed from unanimously winning the AL Rookie of the Year, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson is on pace for his first career MVP. Henderson continued his historic start by hitting his 10th homer this season in Baltimore\u2019s April 29th win over the Yankees. The 22-year-old became the youngest player to record double-digit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":71997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1071],"tags":[2583,2527,2133,248,41,2178,624],"class_list":["post-71953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-orioles","category-mlb","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-brandon-hyde","tag-juan-soto","tag-mike-trout","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-trevor-story"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}