BALTIMORE — Anthony Volpe and Gunnar Henderson have been crossing paths since they were in high school.
Now they seem poised to have a young, star shortstop battle within the AL East for years to come.
Henderson is off to a blazing start for the Orioles, hitting his 10th home run of the season in Monday’s 2-0 win over the Yankees, while Volpe has shown early signs of making a big leap himself in his sophomore season.
“I think they’re both going to have really successful, long careers,” manager Aaron Boone said before the Yankees’ 4-2 loss to the Orioles on Tuesday night at Camden Yards. “Obviously what Gunnar’s doing, we saw it most of the year last year, just how dynamic an all-around player he is. Obviously Anthony, we feel like he’s going to be our shortstop for a long, long time. We’re seeing him continue to get better and better. I think both organizations are in really good shape from a shortstop standpoint for a number of years.”
The two members of the 2019 draft class — Volpe going 30th to the Yankees and Henderson 42nd (the first pick of the second round) to the Orioles — are both capable of impacting the game in multiple ways, whether from their spots atop the lineup or in the field.
The AL East once had young shortstops Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra going head-to-head at the heart of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.
Volpe and Henderson have some work to do before any of those comparisons begin, but they have the potential to be right in the middle of the Yankees and Orioles’ battle for the division this year and beyond.
“It’s going to be neat seeing those two go at it for a long time,” Orioles veteran catcher James McCann said.
Henderson, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year who is two months younger than Volpe, led the American League with 2.1 fWAR entering Tuesday.
Yankees superstar Juan Soto (who, it should be noted, is only less than three years older than Henderson) was close behind in second at 1.9 fWAR, but Volpe was seventh at 1.5 fWAR. (Fourth on that list is another young star shortstop, the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. with a 1.7 fWAR, who was drafted second-overall in 2019.)
“The thing that people lose track of is [Henderson] is still so young,” McCann said of the 22-year-old. “I mean, he’s not far removed from the minor leagues and not far removed from high school baseball. So I think the coolest thing is he’s performing so well, yet there’s still a maturation process he’s going to undergo. There’s still him continuing to develop — maybe not as much physically as it is mentally. That’s going to happen really [by] accident through in-game experience. He’s going to be logging at-bats off pitchers that he’ll see for the next several years and creating that memory bank that he’s going to lean on in the future.
“So I think it’s neat to see the success he’s having now, but I also think when you look at the big picture, it’s kind of scary what he could potentially be doing in two or three years.”
By crushing his 10th home run in his first 28 games of the season on Monday night against Clarke Schmidt, Henderson became the youngest player in MLB history to reach double-digit home runs before May 1.
The left-handed hitter came into Tuesday’s game batting .289 with a .983 OPS and six steals.
“Just the whole package — the defense he’s playing, what he’s doing on the bases, he’s gone left-on-left, base hits the other way,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “He’s so down to earth, too. He’s so modest, but he’s also super confident. I don’t think this is surprising him. I think he believes this is how he should be playing.”
The same could be said for Volpe, who entered Tuesday batting .272 with a .766 OPS and seven steals.
The reigning AL Gold Glove winner has cooled off some from his red-hot start to the season, but his off-season improvements to his swing — getting it back to where it was during his rise through the minor leagues — has made him a different hitter in Year 2.
