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Gunnar Henderson on the Business of Baseball

The Orioles superstar chops it up with Boardroom about new team owner David Rubenstein, his next contract, and why this young Baltimore core is ready to compete now.

A Baltimore Orioles player has not won MVP since the legendary Cal Ripken Jr. in 1991. Last year, at just 23 years old, star shortstop Gunnar Henderson finished fourth in the voting after hitting 37 home runs, stealing 21 bases, and posting an .893 OPA. It was the franchise’s first top-five finish since a 24-year-old Manny Machado achieved the feat in 2016, so it’s fair to say that Henderson is the best player the Orioles have seen in the last decade.

Those lofty expectations and gaudy numbers were far from Henderson’s mind last week as he was closing out his time near Baltimore’s Spring Training facility in Bradenton, Fla., where he shared a house with several of his teammates, including Colton Cowser, Ryan Mountcastle, Adley Rutschman, and Jordan Westburg. They had a pool table, a backyard, a dock where the young Birds could go fishing, and a gaming console where they could all duke it out in Mario Kart, where they all raced with different colored Yoshi cars.

Gaming is what brought Henderson to Zoom last week, as he was on a virtual press tour to promote MLB The Show, which he’s on the cover of alongside Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz and Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes. The Alabama native said he’s played The Show heavily since 2017 and is honored to be one of this year’s cover stars.

“It’s a very awesome memory that I’m going to have forever, and it’s very humbling as well,” Henderson, who will start the season on the injured list with an intercostal strain, told Boardroom.

The last memory the baseball world has of Henderson was a disappointing MLB Wild Card round loss to Kansas City last October, when Baltimore scored a total of one run in two losses to the Royals. That series wasn’t representative of the Orioles’ powerful offense that finished second in MLB in home runs and fourth in total runs in 2024 with an average batter age of 26.9, sixth-youngest in baseball.

Even after losing slugging outfielder Anthony Santander and his 44 homers to Toronto in free agency, the O’s have six other players who hit at least 15 home runs last season and still have a deep lineup led by Henderson, Rutschman, Cowser, Cedric Mullins, and Ryan O’Hearn. Tyler O’Neill and his 31 homers replaced Santander in the lineup with elite prospects — first baseman Samuel Basallo and third baseman Coby Mayo, 13th and 14th in MLB’s list of the sport’s top 100 prospects — projected to join the big club in 2025. That duo will compete with the existing young core for playing time and only enhance the offense’s depth and talent level.

“It’s unbelievable the players we have throughout the system that we bring in and go out there and compete with them,” Henderson said. “That’s how you get better yourself and make them better.”

This level of optimism coincided with Carlyle Group co-founder and co-chairman David Rubenstein buying the team last year from the Angelos family, who tumultuously stewarded the team for decades, for $1.725 billion, while bringing in minority partners like Michael Bloomberg and Grant Hill. Rubenstein, a 75-year-old lifelong Orioles fan, has become a fan favorite by supporting the team on social media and even dancing on top of the dugout to support his boyhood club. Even the old school Orioles hat shown below is now being sold in the team store leading into the 2025 season.

“He’s been awesome,” Henderson said of Rubenstein. “He comes in the locker room a lot, genuinely appreciates everything we’re doing for the city, and has been really taking it all in. I see him in the stands about every night, throwing out hats, just going to the Mr. Splash station. So he is really embracing the full Orioles culture.”

Gunnar has also embraced Baltimore’s culture, with endorsement deals with Under Armour, Molly’s Place sporting goods, Jimmy’s Famous Seafood, and insoles brand VKTRY. Those deals will supplement his $782,000 salary for 2025, the last year of his rookie deal before his salary will exponentially increase in arbitration.

After winning AL Rookie of the Year, earning a Silver Slugger award in 2023, and making his first All-Star Game last year, Henderson is on pace for a massive payday when he’s eligible for free agency following the 2028 season. He’ll hit the open market at 27, younger than most players when they reach six years in the big leagues. That makes it much more likely that he signs a contract in the Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani range because teams will be paying for more of his prime years than most free agents.

Like Soto, Henderson is represented by Scott Boras, who generally waits for his players to hit free agency before signing anything. But there’s another potential option of Baltimore offering to buy out arbitration years and a few free agency years by trying to lock him up now with an extension. That’s the route All-Star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. took when he inked an 11-year, $288 million extension with the Royals before last season.

“I’m open to looking at anything,” Henderson said, “but just going out there and trying to help the team win is my number one thing. And whatever comes with it, comes with it. That’s what I go into each year with and continue to go into each year with.”

Like last year, Henderson is sticking with Gwen Stefani’s “Sweet Escape” as his at-bat walkup song, trying to get the crowd into it each game.