In last year\u2019s version of this article<\/a>, I considered three current Orioles and what their career trajectories might have to look like to eventually be inducted. Those were Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Jackson Holliday. As we all know, the 2025 Orioles stunk and their key players not living up to hopes or expectations was part of why that happened. It\u2019s not even worth looking at Rutschman as a possibility this time around. I\u2019m sad to say it.<\/p>\nHenderson still managed to add 5.3 bWAR in an unquestionably-disappointing 2025 campaign. We have since learned Henderson was playing through a shoulder impingement while doing this. Future HOF voters won\u2019t care about that. The injury, assuming a smooth offseason recovery (which we know from Rutschman is not guaranteed), does offer reasonable hope that he can bounce back to racking up, let\u2019s say, 20 WAR between now and when he becomes a free agent after the 2028 season.<\/p>\n
That would have Henderson at about 41 WAR heading into his age 28 season. This wouldn\u2019t be automatic yet, but he would be on about as smooth a path as any under-30 position player can be towards Cooperstown, giving him a decent chance of being over 50 WAR before age 30 and then needing maybe 10-12 WAR more in his 30s. Let us all resolve not to dwell too long on the percentage chance that Henderson will be in an Orioles uniform for much of that time.<\/p>\n
For Holliday, the 2025 season went better than the one before as he added 125 points onto his OPS. Unfortunately for him, that was still a below-average .695 OPS. He\u2019s started out young, debuting in his age 20 season, but hasn\u2019t made much of that advantage yet.<\/p>\n
Consider Holliday against Andruw Jones, one of this year\u2019s inductees. Jones debuted in his age 19 season and in age 20, his first full year, he posted 3.3 bWAR, with 7.4 more in his age 21 season. Jones had 10.9 WAR at this point on the way to an eventual 62.7; Holliday\u2019s at 1.1. It won\u2019t make Holliday a bust if he doesn\u2019t suddenly have a 7 WAR season in 2026. There are many possible outcomes where he could be pretty good and help the Orioles win games while not being one of the game\u2019s elite players.<\/p>\n
One of the notable aspects of this year\u2019s voting results is an apparent shift in attitudes around starting pitching, as an increasing percentage of the electorate is ready to move on from older ideas of judging pitchers by wins. Along with Pettitte and Hern\u00e1ndez making strides this year, longtime Phillie Cole Hamels had a strong first-year debut, and even longtime White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle showed a strong gain in his sixth year on the ballot. If these pitchers gain further next year, that would reflect a recognition that this is what greatness looks like for 21st century pitchers.<\/p>\n
Not that there are any 21st century Orioles starting pitchers who are in much of a position to take advantage of this potential evolution of standards. Even a guy like Kevin Gausman, who has notched an additional 16.4 WAR onto his career totals in his 30s so far, is nowhere close to these newer numbers. It would be close to miraculous if he equaled that age 30-34 WAR total in his age 35-40 seasons and even that generous assumption would get him to 44 WAR.<\/p>\n
Gausman just wasn\u2019t good enough in his early years with the Orioles, not even managing 10 WAR over six seasons before he got traded in 2018. Exactly who should be blamed for that is fodder for a long-running debate in these parts. He would have to do something like Randy Johnson, dropping 60 WAR starting in his age 35 season. This included four Cy Youngs in a row. I don\u2019t think Gausman is going to do that.<\/p>\n
Returning to the question of when the next great Oriole will make it to Cooperstown: It\u2019s Machado, and he\u2019s signed through 2033. If he plays until then and retires, the five-year waiting period would put him on the ballot in 2039. That is so far in the future that the Orioles will be done paying deferred money to Chris Davis. After Machado, well, maybe some day beyond that, we\u2019ll get to enjoy a piece of Henderson\u2019s bronze plaque.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2026 was announced on Tuesday night, with outfielders Carlos Beltr\u00e1n and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,38868,2538,5,4,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-531127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles-commentary-analysis","11":"tag-baltimoreorioles","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-orioles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115934056041250947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}