GunnarHenderson won the Rookie of the Year Award a year ago, it had been more than 30 years since any Orioles player won one of the “big three” BBWAA awards, also including Cy Young (1980, Steve Stone) and MVP (1991, Cal Ripken Jr.) The ROY drought may have been broken, but you know what? It would still be fun to see an Oriole win one of these others some day.
Obviously, the most important drought to end is the franchise’s not having won a World Series within the lifetime of anybody who’s 40 years old or younger. That’s a given. It’s fun to enjoy some intermediate successes along the way, and as we know from the first time Cal won an MVP in 1983, it sure doesn’t hurt to have an MVP to help you get to and win a World Series title.
The last time this occurred on a league-wide scale was in 2018, the year the Red Sox won the World Series and Mookie Betts was named MVP. It also occurred the two seasons prior, with Kris Bryant winning MVP after the 2016 Cubs ended their historic World Series drought and José Altuve taking home a trophy after the trash-can-banging Astros won in 2017.
For all those hoping to witness an Orioles MVP, there’s good news: Gunnar Henderson is unquestionably one of the leading candidates for this year’s prise as of May 1. There is still a lot of baseball to be played, and he is now playing it at a very good level, providing ample evidence to think that when the regular season comes to an end, Henderson already finished in the top 10 for MVP voting a year ago even while he was winning the ROY. Based on the bWAR numbers, you could argue he actually deserved a top 5 finish. Not bad for a rookie season. He is on track to follow the path that’s been seen by Orioles fans over 40 years ago as Hall of Famer and now part-owner Cal Ripken Jr. went from the AL ROY in 1982 to an even better season and an MVP win in 1983. (Cal should have won two in a row in 1984, but we don’t need to get into that right now.)
