The Baltimore Orioles have one of the best rosters in baseball.
Baltimore is loaded with exciting, young talent and at this point, no player is better on the roster than 23-year-old All-Star Gunnar Henderson.
Henderson is a Most Valuable Player-caliber player. He finished eighth in the American League MVP voting in 2023 as a rookie and fourth in the voting in 2024. Henderson shined for the Orioles in 2024 with 37 home runs, 92 RBIs, 21 stolen bases, and a .281/.364/.529 slash line in 159 games played.
He won’t be a free agent until 2029, but after Juan Soto just landed a $765 million deal, it’s hard not to wonder how much Henderson will end up getting.
FanSided’s Chris Landers, Robert Murray, Terrence Jordan, and Zachary Rotman took a look around the league and attempted to predict the next player who could top Soto’s deal. Rotman suggested Henderson.
“I’m going to go with Gunnar Henderson solely because he’s set to hit free agency one year before Elly De La Cruz,” Rotman said. “We can argue all day about who’s better, but we can’t argue that they’re going to get paid when they hit free agency. While their teams would presumably love to extend them sooner rather than later, they are both represented by Scott Boras – the agent who is known to push his clients toward free agency.
“Notably, Juan Soto turned down a $440 million extension offer years ago and bet on himself. Based on the deal he ended up signing as a free agent, that couldn’t have worked out any better. Henderson might not be Soto with the bat, but he’s coming off a 9.1 bWAR season (Soto’s career-high in a single season is 7.9 bWAR). He’ll be 27 years old – just one year older than Soto – when he hits free agency.”
Henderson is a true star and it’s going to be interesting to see how things go for him over the next few years.
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