After early MLB success, here's how Henderson, Gasser have rebounded from injuries
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PHOENIX -- One of the things Chris Hook loves about being a pitching coach is that you never know when or where a player will find the thing that makes a difference.
Take right-hander Logan Henderson's resurrected curveball.
“You know where that came from?” Hook said Sunday morning, before Henderson and fellow pitching prospect Robert Gasser started split-squad games against the White Sox and Royals. “Game 4 of the NLCS, Dodger Stadium. We were going through his throwing program. We were down, 3-0, and it was tough times. He wasn’t on the roster, but it was like, ‘Here’s a moment we can work with a guy who we know is going to be a big part of this.’”
Henderson threw fastballs and changeups for 88.8 percent of his pitches in his five big league starts earlier in the season before going down with an injury. It worked, but he and Hook both knew that to survive as a starter for the long term, he would need another offspeed pitch. Hook asked if he’d ever thrown a curveball. Henderson said he had, but not for a few years.
So, they went to work on it.
“He tried it all offseason, and it looks like a pitch that can work with his stuff,” Hook said. “I don’t know how it’s going to play. We’ll see.”
Henderson and Gasser have so much in common. Both are top prospects, Henderson (No. 7 on MLB Pipeline’s Brewers prospects list) drafted by Milwaukee in the fourth round in 2021 and Gasser (Brewers No. 20) acquired from the Padres as part of the Josh Hader trade in 2022. Both arrived in the big leagues with a bang, Gasser going 2-0 with a 2.89 ERA in five starts in 2024 and Henderson 3-0 with a 1.78 ERA in five starts in ‘24.
And both saw it taken away. Gasser suffered an elbow injury and needed Tommy John surgery. Henderson had a flexor strain last August that ended his own debut year.
On Sunday, they were a fitting duo to start split-squad games. It marked the beginning of bids for both Henderson, who turns 24 next week, and Gasser, 26, a bid to win a spot in the Opening Day pitching rotation. Gasser faced the minimum in a scoreless inning at home thanks to a double play, and got a three-pitch strikeout of future star Jac Caglianone. Henderson was just as sharp on the road at Camelback Ranch, working a 1-2-3 inning on 14 pitches.
“I want to prove that I belong here,” Henderson said. “But it’s Spring Training, and I’m going to be working on things that maybe I didn’t do last year, like throwing the curveball. But I want to win, you know? I don’t think that changes.”
He hasn’t regularly thrown that pitch since 2022 or '23, right at the start of his pro career.
“I’m not shying away from who I am. That’s primarily fastball and changeup,” Henderson said. “But the book’s out on me. Murph [manager Pat Murphy] said it a lot last year, that you can pretty much flip a coin and guess which pitch I’m throwing. I want to be able to eliminate that.”
To deal with the disappointment of his ill-timed injury, Henderson found strength in his Christian faith with help from his mother, Dani Landry. For Gasser, some of the best counsel came from the Brewers’ performance department, particularly director of performance psychology Tyler Bradstreet.
“I was having the time of my life,” Gasser said. “It was the best month of my life, pitching good in the Major Leagues with a winning team. You can’t ask for much more than that. Dealing with that was tough.”
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Gasser rehabbed for 13 months before resuming Minor League starts last July. The Brewers called him up to the Majors for a pair of relief outings in the final week of the regular season as a tune-up for a spot on the roster for both the NLDS against the Cubs and the NLCS against the Dodgers. There was a bright spot when he came on to strike out Shohei Ohtani to end a rally in the eighth inning of NLCS Game 2, but he mostly pitched in traffic during his two playoff outings.
“I’ve said it before, the team being willing to put me out there, it makes me feel really good knowing they trust me,” Gasser said. “I really appreciate that. But also, it left me hungry. It wasn’t the way I wanted to come back. After the first year, I set the bar high.”
This year, the bar is high again. Murphy met separately with Gasser and Henderson on Sunday morning to remind them that whatever the Opening Day roster looks like, they will both pitch big innings for the Brewers this season.
“What matters is they’re a huge part of the staff,” Murphy said.