Logan Henderson’s place in the National League Rookie of the Year voting tells the story of a season that was strong when he was on the mound, but too interrupted to carry real weight in the race.
MLB announced the 2026 BBWAA end-of-season awards last night, and the Rookie of the Year honors went to Kevin McGonigle of the Detroit Tigers in the American League and Sal Stewart of the Cincinnati Reds in the National League. Henderson, the Brewers’ right-hander, landed sixth in NL voting with 10 points.
That finish kept Milwaukee’s recent streak alive. For the third straight season, a Brewers player cracked the top six in Rookie of the Year voting. Jackson Chourio finished third in 2024, then Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins placed third and fourth, respectively, last year before Henderson’s sixth-place showing this time around.
The gap above him was significant. TJ Rumfeld of the Colorado Rockies finished fifth with 49 points, while Stewart ran away with the award at 170 points.
Henderson’s final place wasn’t really about a lack of quality. It was about a lack of innings.
His rookie year got off to a delayed start after elbow discomfort during Spring Training slowed him down. He did appear in a game as a mop-up reliever in early April, but his first start didn’t come until May 3, when he delivered a quality start against the Washington Nationals in Washington, D.C.
May went well enough to set him up for a run, but then came the back strain that sent him to the IL for a month. Henderson didn’t return until July 9, and by then the award race had already started to move away from him. He stayed in the rotation from early July through the end of the season and remained effective, but the missed time left him with only 98.1 innings.
That total was more than 80 innings fewer than Nolan McLean of the New York Mets, who finished fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting. Henderson’s 2.47 ERA and steady production suggest he had the kind of season that could have put him in the finalist conversation if he had simply been available longer. With 150-plus innings, the Brewers right-hander might have had the strikeout totals and wins to make a much stronger case, even if Stewart’s 32 homers and 112 RBI would still have been a tough mountain to climb.
The bottom line is pretty clear: Henderson pitched well enough to belong in the discussion, but not enough to overcome the lost time. And for Milwaukee, there’s a bigger-picture payoff here too.
The Brewers chose not to trade Henderson for Tarik Skubal at the deadline, a decision that looks better by the day. Henderson, who already has World Series experience, is under contract for the next five seasons and should be a central part of a rotation that also features Cy Young frontrunner Jacob Misiorowski.
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