It\u2019s easy to understand the broken bones and muscle strains that land players on the injured list. What\u2019s harder to quantify is the impact of the injuries they play through and what kind of weight they are on the club\u2019s performance. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s part of what makes forecasting the 2026 Orioles challenging. Every retrospective health update creates a question about the injury\u2019s role in a player\u2019s season. At times they completely explain what held the player back. <\/p>\n
But, coming off a season in which so many assumptions were challenged regarding the team\u2019s homegrown core, it feels risky to simply chalk up last year to health and move on \u2014 even if that\u2019s probably the thing to do.<\/p>\n
Gunnar Henderson\u2019s shoulder issue<\/a>, which he disclosed on the club\u2019s offseason radio show and elaborated on Friday, is just the latest example. A dive in the field in spring training led to a rib issue<\/a> that delayed his season, and it clearly took him a bit to get going against the club\u2019s lefty-heavy opponent slate in April. At some point, he dove again and suffered a shoulder impingement with inflammation.<\/p>\n Henderson said he \u201ccouldn\u2019t plane out as early as I wanted to, and just kind of chopped down on the ball,\u201d which led to lower power numbers than he\u2019d previously enjoyed; he hit 17 home runs \u2014 20 fewer than the year before \u2014 and slugged a career-low .438. He hit the ball hard but couldn\u2019t get to a position to elevate the ball and generate extra-base hits. <\/p>\n The lack of power was notable all year, and the reason is only evident now. On a team with so many players on the injured list at one point or another, it makes sense that Henderson played through what he could. He\u2019s not the only one.<\/p>\n Jackson Holliday had an MRI in September for a knee issue that had persisted for a while, by all indications. Colton Cowser, who broke a bone in his hand<\/a> during the first series of the season and missed two months, played through fractured ribs after returning<\/a>. <\/p>\n Jordan Westburg homered three times in the first three games of the season, sat the fourth after the turf in Toronto took its toll on him, and scuffled through April with an upper-body injury before going on the injured list with a hamstring injury<\/a>. <\/p>\n Add in the October revelation that Adley Rutschman, too, wasn\u2019t just dealing with the pair of oblique injuries that put him on the injured list but back and hand issues dating to 2024<\/a>, and you have all kinds of explanations as to why this formidable group of homegrown players wasn\u2019t at its best. <\/p>\n I don\u2019t read it as making excuses. That\u2019s not going to be everyone\u2019s take. I think back to the annual spring check-ins about what ailed Chris Davis the year before and feel like I can sense the difference here.<\/p>\n It was only four months ago that, when taking stock of all this (before Henderson added himself to the list), I vowed not to overindex the idea that someone wasn\u2019t 100% healthy in the analysis of potential underperformance<\/a>. This most recent bit of information is worth indexing pretty heavily, which contradicts that.<\/p>\n The difference, it seems, is that I\u2019d have had the same conviction level in Henderson getting back to his best self whether or not I knew something was physically holding him back in 2025. <\/p>\n What\u2019s worth monitoring is how, with a new staff in place, a new example of durability in Alonso and another year working with head athletic trainer Scott Baringer, the idea of grinding through injuries looks this year. <\/p>\n![\"Jordan](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/EXNQA4F7L5GIHPAMX4K7UOW5NY.jpg\")
Injuries limited Jordan Westburg to 85 games last season. (Jaiden Tripi\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n