On the evening of June 3, 2019, roughly 50 people gathered in the backyard of a single-family home in Valley Grande, Ala. The sun was still high on a 92-degree day that showed no signs of cooling down as the group stood around the pool, munching on chips, dip and pizza.

Kerry and Allen Henderson had been hesitant about attending the party. Hosted by a friend, it was a watch party for Major League Baseball’s annual draft, and their 17-year-old son, Gunnar, was among those hoping to be selected. They were anxious, and wondered if they should have just watched at home. But the host, Terry Waters, had thrown batting practice to Gunnar for MLB scouts who came to their small neighboring town, Selma, which has roughly 16,000 people. Waters and many others in the area felt invested in the outcome of the draft.

Gunnar was a consensus first-round pick, a powerful 6-foot-3, 195-pound shortstop at John T. Morgan Academy, who had been named Alabama’s top high school basketball player. Mock drafts had him going between picks 14 and 25. Pick No. 25 was “the floor,” per The Athletic’s draft expert Keith Law.

The party was in full swing as the first 10 picks flashed on a big flat screen showing the MLB Network’s live broadcast. Then people began to pay closer attention. The Phillies, who told Henderson they would take him at No. 14 if college shortstop Bryson Stott wasn’t available, got their top choice. Three picks later, the Nationals, who had hosted a private workout for Henderson, went with pitcher Jackson Rutledge. The Dodgers used pick No. 25 on Tulane third baseman Kody Hoese.

The names kept ticking off. The group kept waiting. The Yankees had always preferred another high school shortstop, Anthony Volpe, and took him – the eighth shortstop drafted – at No. 30. A faction of Houston’s scouting department wanted Henderson, but the Astros ultimately selected Cal catcher Korey Lee with pick No. 32.

Every team but Boston, which didn’t have a first-round pick that year, passed on Henderson. The Pirates passed on him twice, as did the Dodgers. Arizona and Tampa Bay passed on him three times each. The athleticism was enticing, as were Henderson’s raw tools, but he wasn’t a sure bet. He hadn’t fared that well on the recent summer circuit. The Astros weren’t sure he could make enough contact and stick at shortstop, and the Dodgers had concerns about his swing and lack of domination against the weaker competition Henderson faced in Selma. Team after team didn’t want to take the risk.

When the Texas Rangers took Baylor third baseman David Wendzel with pick No. 41, the broadcast of the draft ended — only the first round and nine compensatory/competitive balance picks were televised — and the TV was switched to another channel.

A pall fell over the party. Kerry fought back tears. Allen felt sick. Eventually, Gunnar and his parents tried to lighten the mood, reminding everyone of the fallback plan.

“We’re going to Auburn!” the trio announced. The group cheered.

Gunnar Henderson never made it to Auburn.

The 23-year-old is one of the top five players in Major League Baseball, by FanGraphs WAR. He’s the reigning American League Rookie of the Year, an All-Star and the face of the Baltimore Orioles, a team widely regarded as being in the early phases of a potential dynasty. The O’s will begin the wild-card round of the playoffs against the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday, and their shortstop — coming off one of the best single seasons in Orioles history — will take center stage.

Henderson was drafted with the first pick in the second round and is one of the bigger scouting misses in recent memory. Most of the prospects drafted before Henderson are still in the minors, or struggling to prove they belong in the big leagues. Only No. 2 pick Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals has been as impactful a hitter.

“Every city we go to, you talk to other coaches who are like ‘How did this guy last that long?” said Orioles manager Brandon Hyde.

Henderson’s rise highlights the imperfect nature of the draft, as teams repeatedly talked themselves out of a talented but risky high school player. It’s also a developmental success story, as the plan Baltimore crafted for Henderson, including an unorthodox approach during the pandemic, set him up to arrive and produce in the majors earlier than expected.

In 2018, when Mike Elias was the Astros’ scouting director, he began scrutinizing the following year’s draft class, circling Henderson’s name as his preferred choice with Houston’s late first-round pick. But that November, Elias was hired as Baltimore’s general manager. The rebuilding Orioles had the No. 1 pick and would take Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman.

On Baltimore’s internal draft board, Henderson, who was also well liked by the incumbent scouting group, was somewhere between Nos. 14 and 16. But because the Orioles wouldn’t pick again until No. 42, landing him seemed like a pipe dream. So much so that Kerry told her youngest son, Cade, to change out of the pajama pants featuring his favorite team — the Orioles — before he could go to the draft party.

As the draft picks got to the low 30s, and with Henderson’s name still out there, Elias — who had scouted Henderson more than two dozen times — called Henderson’s then-agent, Larry Reynolds, to ask: Would Henderson sign if they paid him over slot value? Reynolds wasn’t sure. The family had been pretty clear it was the first round or Auburn. They patched in Allen, who was still lingering at the Waters’ home. After the Auburn announcement, Kerry had gone to try to eat something. Gunnar was out back playing cornhole. There wasn’t time to gather them and relay the message, let alone make a life-altering decision.

A few minutes later, Gunnar and Kerry found out the Orioles had selected him in the second round on a ticker scrolling across the bottom of the TV.

No one slept that night. Kerry was up crying, tossing and turning and praying. She never cared which team took Gunnar or how much money he got. Instead she had hoped and prayed for a “clear path.” For her and Allen, being a first-round pick felt like a clear enough path for their son to bypass college. But now what?

The next morning, taking a walk through the neighborhood to think, Kerry received a call from Astros scout Travis Coleman, who had coached Gunnar in travel ball. “Baltimore doesn’t have a shortstop. There’s a clear path for him there,” Coleman said.

Elias called later that day, telling the Hendersons how excited he was that the Orioles had drafted Gunnar. He also mentioned that the Orioles didn’t have long-term infielders and that the organization was rebuilding around its young players. Baltimore, Elias said, was where Gunnar was supposed to be. “There’s a clear path here,” Elias said.

There it was again. Two people using the exact phrase Kerry had used herself to describe what she wanted for her son, that sealed it. Henderson agreed to sign with the Orioles for $2.3 million, $500,000 above slot value, forgoing Auburn.

Within baseball, the COVID-19 pandemic has widely been considered a lost developmental year. The 2020 minor league season was canceled, with most players left to train on their own or not at all. The only setup allowed for Major League teams was an “alternate site” with a maximum of 30 players, which for most teams consisted of big leaguers and Triple-A players who could serve as roster depth for the big-league squad, covering injuries and underperformance.

Baltimore, fresh off a 54-108 season, sent Rutschman and Henderson to their alternate site, even though both were years away from being on a big-league roster. The thinking was simple: These were formative years, and they had just paid both guys big bonuses. What else were they going to do?

“It’s like you have a kid, and you have a choice of either he doesn’t go to school or you skip six grades,” Elias said. “We decided to skip six grades.”

Rutschman, an older, more polished college athlete who had gone through three levels his first pro season, held his own right away. Henderson, who had only 29 rookie ball games under his belt, struggled mightily. In his first at-bat, he faced Eric Hanhold, a journeyman reliever almost eight years his senior. He struck out on three pitches.

“He saw right away that Adley was having some success and he wasn’t good enough. And it drove him crazy,” said Orioles hitting coach Ryan Fuller.

Henderson had always been a tireless worker. When his parents came to visit him in rookie ball, he and Allen snuck onto a high school field after a bad game so Gunnar could swing out some of his frustration. There was no screen to shield Allen, so he held an old chain link fence in front of him with one hand and pitched with the other.

At the alternate site, Henderson “came to us right away and said, ‘I stink, let’s get to work,’” Fuller said. The focal point early on was the barrel entry on Henderson’s bat. It was too steep and he would pull his hands into the zone off plane. Even in rookie ball, Henderson had seen how exposed the natural loft in his swing left him to rising fastballs. So, for weeks, he worked in the batting cage trying to connect with little foam balls — “hoppy heaters” — that would rise as they approached the plate.

Each day, Henderson would get to the field around 10:30 a.m. and work in the cage. Then he’d take ground balls and roughly 5-10 live at-bats, totally overmatched against guys who had been in Triple A or the big leagues.

“Every single day he would take his beating,” said Matt Blood, then director of player development, “and he would go back to the cage and they would just train, train, train.”

There was nowhere to go but the hotel and the field, yet Henderson was in heaven. “It was probably one of the most fun times I’ve had playing,” he said. “It was all about development, and I took it seriously.”

There was no worrying about slash lines, or wins and losses. There were no distractions. “It was unlimited reps, and maybe we weren’t the smartest at the time, but we had young, motivated players wanting to hit,” Fuller said. “When we had downtime, we would go to the cage. And it wasn’t feel-good swings, it was always something really challenging. It was almost experimental at that point. But these guys knew that we were building for something bigger.”

Roughly three weeks in, Henderson started holding his own during the simulated games. A swing change that might have taken months or even a year under normal circumstances evolved much faster thanks to thousands of reps at the alternate site. Henderson was flattening out his swing to create a better path to the ball. The Orioles kept internal stats at the alternate site, and while Henderson’s batting average never recovered from the early shellacking, his OPS started creeping up, approaching the respectable .700s when it was through.

“This young dude is competing against these guys that he really had no business competing against,” Blood said. “And by the end of it, we’re all looking at each other like, if he keeps this rate of practice and development up, we might have an animal on our hands.”

Gunnar Henderson homered in his major-league debut. (Nick Cammett / Getty Images)

That fall, Henderson played in the Orioles instructional league. In 2021 Henderson started putting up what Elias calls “freakish exit velocity numbers,” and flew through three levels to end at Double A. By the following June, he was promoted to Triple A. There, Henderson slugged .504 with a .374 batting average on balls in play. He was promoted to the big-leagues on Aug. 31. Henderson’s first hit was a home run where he swung so hard — 107.1 mph off his bat — that his helmet fell off.

In spring training 2023, Henderson texted his now-fiancée, Katherine Lee Bishop, who is in her final year of pharmacy school at Auburn, his goal was to win AL Rookie of the Year. Before each season, he texts Bishop his big goal for the year, and then they don’t talk about it again.

In that 2023 rookie season, Henderson started slowly. Then on June 8, he hit a go-ahead, two-run, eighth-inning homer down the left-field line in Milwaukee that helped get his mojo back. Every night, he was showcasing the rapid improvements he’d made at the plate and a glove that could hold its own at shortstop. He did win Rookie of the Year, the first Oriole in 34 years to do so, and he did it in unanimous fashion.

This year, Henderson slashed .282/.366/.531 in 158 games. He had 92 RBI, 118 runs scored (sixth-most in baseball) and was voted Most Valuable Oriole for the second season in a row.  Still, after some games, Henderson bemoans to Bishop that he didn’t barrel up a ball all night. It doesn’t matter if he went 3-for-4 with multiple RBIs. In Triple A, Henderson would go from a full sprint to a full-stop down the first baseline so quickly that his manager Buck Britton had to look away, he was so worried about the young star blowing out a hamstring. It was Henderson’s way of blowing off steam.

“I wish he wouldn’t be so hard on himself sometimes,” Hyde said. “He literally doesn’t think he should ever get out … He will come back (to the dugout) and there’s sort of a bewilderment, like, how did that just happen?”

On a young Baltimore team, Henderson’s intensity is mixed with youthful exuberance.

For the All-Star game, Henderson had a Scooby Doo bat made and, when coming off the field, grabbed the ESPN mic to yell the cartoon dog’s signature line, “Ruh Roh Raggy!” Henderson also lists much-maligned Star Wars character Jar-Jar Binks as another top impression and is a surprisingly confident singer, thinking nothing of cranking up the radio and serenading Bishop on their first date.

“We have a couple of karaoke days on the (Orioles) bus,” said Henderson, who used Motley Crue’s “Kickstart my Heart” as his walkup song in the minors and then switch to Gwen Stefani’s “Sweep Escape” — an idea from his older brother, Jackson — to get the fans more involved. Henderson has an old country song he plays in the batting cages on Sundays, but teammates “never wanted me to sing it in there,” he said. He usually respects that.

Henderson’s manners are impeccable, if not jarring in a big league clubhouse. He  peppers every sentence with “sir” or “ma’am”, something coaches have had to tell him to stop doing. It occasionally still slips into an in-game conversation with Hyde. “We are past that now,” Fuller says, laughing. “No more ‘sir.’”

It’s a reminder of the way he was raised. When Henderson went pro, he promised his parents he’d get a college degree. Kerry and Allen have the notepad he scrawled it in for safekeeping. Henderson has completed enough online credits through Wallace Community College Selma, where Kerry works, to be a sophomore.  He’s working toward a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, a goal that’s on hold now as he deals with more pressing matters.

Baltimore, whose last World Series win was in 1983, was swept out of the AL Division Series by the Rangers last year, ending a magical 101-win season. It was a setback chalked up, in part, to the team’s youth. The O’s, many national pundits believe, are just at the beginning of what could be a long run of success. This year, the expectations are much higher.

And while the Orioles have relied on key trades (like pitcher Corbin Burnes) and feel-good stories (Ryan O’Hearn and starter Albert Suárez), the roster is built around a young position-player core that includes Henderson, Rutschman, Jackson Holliday, Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg.

All of those guys were picked higher in their respective draft classes than Henderson, who virtually any other team could have had. Instead, he’s in Baltimore, where his face is plastered on posters and where he has already passed a guy named Cal Ripken, Jr. for most home runs (37) by a shortstop in team history.

The awkwardness of that draft party five years ago feels light years away from an already-impressive career still in its infancy.

“The Orioles weren’t on my radar,” Henderson said, “but it worked out.”

(Top image: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)

NEW YORK — As a two-strike fastball from Paul Skenes whizzed toward him, New York Yankees slugger Juan Soto read it as a ball and began backing off the plate. At a time when almost anything is debatable, there’s an overwhelming consensus that Soto has the best eye of any batter in baseball. This time, he had been duped. Soto jerked his front elbow out of harm’s way. But the Pittsburgh Pirates’ rookie phenom had painted a 100 mph heater on the black.

Skenes struck out three in an abbreviated start Saturday, and each was its own chef’s kiss. Seeing Soto and Aaron Judge for the first time since starting the All-Star Game, Skenes caught Soto looking and whirled a sweeper past Judge’s bat for strike three. Then, for the last out of his rookie season, Skenes dispatched Jazz Chisholm Jr. the same way he had Soto, with a triple-digit fastball cutting back onto the inside corner for strike three.

“When you’re able to execute to your arm side with fastballs,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said, “that puts you in a different category.”

This was the final pitch of Paul Skenes’ rookie season …

Absolutely incredible pic.twitter.com/sWmIMmvkE4

— MLB (@MLB) September 28, 2024

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The 22-year-old Skenes is, indeed, in his own category. Despite spending the first six weeks of the season at Triple A, Skenes authored the most dominant season of any rookie starting pitcher of the past 50 years.

In a 9-4 Pirates win Saturday, Skenes, starting opposite Yankees right-hander Luis Gil in a matchup of Rookie of the Year front-runners, tossed two perfect innings, then strode off the field with a smile. He ended the season 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA across 133 innings, with 170 strikeouts and 32 walks.

By ERA+, which adjusts for league and park factors, the last starter with a comparable rookie season to Skenes (211 ERA+) did it 51 years ago — Montreal Expos righty Steve Rogers (245 ERA+), who started only 17 games in 1973 but finished seven of them, with a 1.54 ERA in 134 innings.

Since then …

Among those left off the list are Rookie of the Year winners Dwight Gooden (137 ERA+), Fernando Valenzuela (135) and Kerry Wood (129).

“(Skenes) has been one of the big stories of Major League Baseball this year — first pick, doesn’t break camp and then is starting the All-Star Game,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Saturday’s game. “He’s obviously had a phenomenal year. I think our guys are looking forward to facing him.

“He’s a player that’s really, really taken the league by storm and has emerged as one of the game’s outstanding starters.”

The story of Skenes’ rookie season is best told in bullet points:

• Since 2000, nine starters have had a sub-2 ERA in at least 130 innings in a season: Pedro Martínez, Roger Clemens, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Jake Arrieta, Blake Snell, Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander and now Skenes.

• Skenes is the fourth pitcher in MLB history with a sub-2 ERA and at least 11 strikeouts per nine innings.

• He’s the second pitcher since 1913 with a sub-2 ERA through 23 starts.

• He’s the fifth rookie since 1900 with at least 150 strikeouts and fewer than 40 walks.

• Skenes allowed six hits or fewer in all 23 starts, the third-longest stretch to start a career in recorded history.

• Since debuting May 11, Skenes leads all starters in ERA (1.96), strikeout rate (32.9 percent), average fastball velocity (98.9 mph) and Win Probability Added (3.71), and he ranks second in WHIP (0.95), opponent batting average (.198), FIP (2.48) and strikeout-minus-walk rate (26.6 percent).

From his first major-league pitch at 4:07 p.m. on May 11, a 101 mph four-seamer, to his last pitch Saturday in the Bronx, a 100 mph four-seamer, Skenes delivered time and again for the Pirates. He pitched six no-hit innings in his second start and seven no-hit innings in his 11th start. He chucked 101 mph past Shohei Ohtani. He started the All-Star Game. Skenes allowed two or fewer earned runs in 20 of 23 starts, remaining remarkably consistent even as the Pirates’ playoff chances cratered in August.

Skenes will earn a full year of service by finishing top-two in NL Rookie of the Year voting, so his brilliance will bring him to free agency after five more seasons, not six. The Pirates made no attempts to shut down Skenes or sharply limit his innings late in the season, moves that might have hurt his Rookie of the Year case. On multiple occasions in recent weeks, Shelton stumped for Skenes to win over Jackson Merrill and Jackson Chourio.

“He’s doing things we haven’t seen anybody do,” Shelton said Saturday. “Since he’s come up, it’s hard to argue that he’s not only been Rookie of the Year but he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball. To have a sub-2 ERA in his first year, especially in today’s era, that’s pretty special.”

Shelton was around several standout young pitchers earlier in his career: CC Sabathia in Cleveland; David Price, Chris Archer and Snell in Tampa; José Berríos in Minnesota. None arrived like Skenes. “That’s a pretty good group of guys,” Shelton said, “and I’d put him right at the top of that.”

The Skenes Effect was evident on Pittsburgh’s North Shore this summer. Skenes pitched seven of the Pirates’ 20 highest-attended home games this season. The average attendance at PNC Park for Skenes starts was 25,460. On any other day: 20,504.

The Pirates had several high-profile pitching debuts in the 2010s — Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Mitch Keller — but none arrived as capable of eviscerating opposing lineups as Skenes. In fact, the Pirates hadn’t seen anything like this from a rookie starter since Chester A. Arthur was in office, as only Denny Driscoll in 1882 had a better ERA (1.21) or ERA+ (218) through 23 starts in a season than Skenes.

The Pirates haven’t had any starter in the live-ball era start at least 23 games and have a lower ERA or higher ERA+ than Skenes.

Closest ERA: 1968, Bob Veale, 2.05

Closest ERA+: 1977, John Candelaria, 169

Skenes struck out 32.9 percent of batters this season, more than any other right-handed starter in the sport, by spewing gas and ripping splinkers — a sinker/splitter hybrid that Skenes picked up accidentally while playing catch after the draft last year. The splinker elevated a pitch mix that had concerned some evaluators who felt Skenes relied too heavily on a flat fastball and a sweeping slider. Opposing hitters have been flummoxed by the splinker, batting .184 with a .234 slugging percentage against the pitch.

Asked what stood out to him about Skenes, Boone pointed out “the size and power and the ease with which he generates stuff — and then having some cool names for his pitches, too.” Boone added: “He’s so large and generates such power without looking like he’s max-efforting it.”

Skenes averaged 98.9 mph on his four-seam fastball. He touched triple digits 100 times, more than twice as much as any other starter. But it was his ability to sequence and run his mix six pitches deep that was so impressive in the stretch run. He turned to his changeup in key moments in September. He dialed back his fastball usage, then in his last start, attacked Soto and Chisholm with heat right under their hands.

Paul Skenes roasting Juan Soto. pic.twitter.com/V2rzmqsIlq

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 28, 2024

What will his manager remember from Skenes’ rookie season?

“The fact he continued to get better,” Shelton said.

Skenes allowed four earned runs across his last seven starts.

Skenes has had the most dominant rookie season of any starter since Steve Rogers, but not the most valuable. That’s a more complicated case to make.

Skenes entered Saturday with 5.8 WAR, by Baseball Reference ranking 20th among rookie starters in the live-ball era. Brandon Webb, José Fernández and Michael Soroka are all higher on the list. At No. 1, by a full win, is Mark Fidrych: 9.6 WAR. Fidrych had a 2.45 ERA and 159 ERA+ over 250 1/3 innings for the 1976 Tigers. Skenes didn’t come within 100 innings of Fidrych.

When it comes to WAR, The Bird still stands alone.

And yet, had Skenes been on the Pirates’ Opening Day roster, it could be considerably closer. With 10 more starts at this rate, Skenes would have 8.4 WAR, third among rookie starters in the live-ball era.

*Estimate based on Skenes’ pace through 22 starts

Asked after his start Saturday if he’d met his expectations for 2024, the ever-understated Skenes said he hadn’t brought many expectations into the season. He just wanted to take the ball every fifth day.

“I don’t know what else I could have done,” Skenes said, “but I’m definitely happy with how this season went.”

In total, between the minors and majors, Skenes threw 160 innings this season. That seems to have been the Pirates’ chosen number all along. Shelton sat down Skenes in St. Louis two weeks ago and said he’d go five innings against the Reds and two against the Yankees in his last two starts.

Skenes would have preferred to throw with no restrictions this season — the late start effectively prevented him from capturing the ERA title or vying for the NL Cy Young Award — but the Pirates succeeded in keeping him healthy and ready for a larger workload in 2025. “We didn’t know if (the plan) was going to be perfect,” Shelton said. “I don’t know if anybody did. I realize people are going to be critical because they wanted to see him.”

Skenes has two goals for next season. The first is a repeat.

“Just take the ball and pitch,” he said.

The second?

“Win a lot of baseball games.”

(Photo: Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)