However, last season’s numbers were a step down from the 154 wRC+ and 7.9 fWAR Henderson delivered in 2024. Henderson missed most of Spring Training and the first week of regular season action as he recovered from an intercostal strain, but the shortstop revealed Thursday that he also had about “three quarters of the year” dealing with a previously unknown shoulder impingement.
In an interview on WBAL’s Orioles Hot Stove Show (hats off Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com),Henderson said: “I just couldn’t hold the plane and my body was adapting to it, it didn’t feel great so that didn’t really put me in the right place to use the ball like I normally do..” Despite his solid production, Henderson has “I could never get to the place I wanted to get to with my swing, but no excuse. I just had to play through it and felt like I still had a decent year given all those circumstances. I’m looking forward to being healthy this year and getting back to my normal self.”
The injury wasn’t serious enough to land on the injured list, or even any missed time, as Henderson played in 154 of 155 games after being activated from the IL on April 4. With the Orioles falling out of contention fairly early in the season, the team certainly should have shut down Henderson or at least reduced his playing time if there were any real concerns over his shoulder.
With Henderson now projecting good health for 2026, the shoulder impingement can likely be written off as yet another footnote in an injury-riddled season for the Orioles roster. Getting the 2024 version of Henderson back would go a long way toward the O’s return to the playoffs after their disappointing 75-win campaign.
To have Framber Valdez in the rotation would also be a huge boost, and the possibility of a major rotation addition remains since the Orioles have been linked to the free agent left-hander market. However, this isn’t the first time Baltimore has wanted to acquire Valdez The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon report that the left-hander was part of a four-player trade package that the Astros were willing to send to the O’s for Zack Britton at the 2017 trade deadline.
It was known at the time that a Britton trade fell apart at the last minute between the two sides, with the Orioles reportedly withdrawing due to medical concerns about two of the players involved. Houston’s side of the deal was not known until now, as Rosenthal/Sammon report that the Astros offered Valdez (then a somewhat unknown Double-A prospect), J.D. Davis, Jason MartinAnd Rogelio Armenteros for Britton, who was in the midst of an injury-shortened season but was arguably the best player in baseball when healthy.
While initial reports said the Orioles disagreed with the medical treatment of both pitchers (Armenteros and Valdez) in the trade offer, Rosenthal/Sammon write that Baltimore’s issue was only with Armenteros. Former Orioles owner Peter Angelos was somewhat infamous for being cautious about pitcher health, which led to several trades or free agents that were renegotiated at the eleventh hour or abandoned altogether.
Armenteros’ MLB career ultimately consisted of five appearances for the Astros in 2019 and he missed the entire 2020 season due to surgery to remove a bone spur from his pitching elbow. In this context, it’s hard to say the Orioles were wrong in their concerns, although Arementeros ultimately was the least successful of the four players Houston tendered. In addition to Valdez, Davis also became a highly productive infielder when the Astros traded him to the Mets during the 2018-19 offseason, and that breakout could very well have happened in Baltimore instead of New York. Martin’s MLB career included 85 games with the Pirates and Rangers from 2019 to 2021, but Martin was one of four players the Astros sent to Pittsburgh. Gerrit Kool ahead of the 2018 season.
The Astros won the 2017 World Series without Britton anyway, and Valdez ultimately became a cornerstone of the team’s success over the past decade. While Houston’s front office (which included current Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias at the time) was certainly annoyed when the Orioles pulled the plug on the Britton trade, the team came out on top in the long run, and it’s another example of how you never know which prospect could end up being the key piece of a trade package.
In fairness to the O’s, there wasn’t much indication at the time that Valdez would become a front-line starter, and it’s possible that Valdez wouldn’t have developed as well as he did in the Baltimore organization rather than in Houston. The 2017 season was the first of five straight losing seasons for the Orioles as they entered a rebuilding period under Elias, and it’s interesting to wonder how the presence of Valdez (and Davis) would have changed the trajectory of that rebuild.
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