One of the biggest disappointments of this Orioles season was Jackson Holliday’s debut and subsequent time in the Majors this year. Coming out of spring training where he played very well many people including myself wanted and expected him to make the Major League roster.
When he didn’t there was a lot of discussion about service time manipulation and the Orioles prioritizing the 2030 roster over the 2024 roster. The stated reason for keeping Holliday down was because they wanted him to get a chance to face more lefties in triple A but just a few weeks into the season Elias quickly pivoted and called up Holliday which was interesting because keeping him down for that short of time provided no contractual benefit to the Orioles and it’s hard to say that the in the short time he was in Triple A before getting called up that he suddenly had seen the correct amount of lefties for the front office to feel more confident.
Anyway how or why they called him up when they did ended up not mattering because he struggled mightily hitting just .059/.111/.059. On top of the numbers looking bad the eye test was not very good either, he whiffed a lot, he struck out a lot and when he did make contact it was not usually hard contact. So from the plate it was pretty much the worst case scenario from a hitting standpoint although he was solid in the field at second base.
So Holliday had to be sent down after just a few short weeks, it was disappointing but I don’t think anyone is panicking. Holliday is just 20 years old, when he was drafted he was 18 years old and he said it was his goal to be in the majors by 2024 and we saw him fly through the minor leagues last year in pursuit of that goal. We’ve seen the MLB insider segments about his family’s baseball bunker so we know he lives and breathes baseball. Now that he made it the majors and got “exposed” I have full faith that he is going to put in the work to understand why that happened and what he needs to change so that the next time he gets called up things go differently.
What he needed to work on the most was all the swing and miss. It was clear that the jump in the quality of pitching in triple A to the quality of pitching in the Majors was a bit too much for Holliday to handle as he struggled to even put the bat on the ball. Now struggling to hit upper echelon major league stuff is a hard problem to fix because major league caliber pitchers with major league stuff don’t typically hang out in triple A so it’s simply hard to practice. If you’ve mastered everything except hitting big time major league pitches then you would think the best way to learn it would be to go to the majors and see some big time major league pitches but a contending team in a battle for their division can only afford having a guy hitting .059 for so long.
So Holliday is tasked with trying to adjust to major league pitching while hitting against triple A pitching which is tricky. I think from his stats we can see that he is focusing on his approach at the plate as he has raised his OBP substantially and isn’t hitting for quite as much power. I think that is the right move as he’s proven he can take triple A pitchers deep at an elite rate so it better serves him to work on forming good habits that will pay off at the major league level rather than trying to raise you OPS by taking massive hacks at 88 MPH triple A fastballs.
So the question is it working, is he getting better? And the answer is I don’t know, I think whether he is ready or not to get another shot at the big leagues will come down to what the hitting coaches who are watching him everyday at practice and in the games. When I watched spring training games and I saw his numbers at triple A earlier this season I thought he couldn’t have been more ready so I don’t think it is going to be a matter of waiting for his batting average to get back over .300 for his slugging percentage to get over .500 as much as his coaches need to see him be successful against pitchers that they deem are major league quality so there might only be 4-5 at bats that really matter for Holliday a week.
Where will Holliday fit should they call him back up?
Assuming that Holliday gets another shot this year you have to wonder how the O’s are going to fit him into the lineup. As of right now Henderson and Westburg have 2 of the 3 infield spots on lockdown and when he was healthy Jorge Mateo was playing a really good second base and we also know that the O’s do not want to have to DFA Ramon Urias to make room for prospects. Right now Connor Norby is in the majors where he has been pretty good but it feels like either he or Stowers will be the corresponding move when Mateo comes off the IL on Monday.
So that will be the first domino to fall, I think based on what the Orioles choose to do with Connor Norby on Monday will tell us a lot about how they feel about his future both this season and with the organization in general. If they send him down after just 7 days in the majors it feels like it is his destiny to follow the Joey Ortiz route vs if they choose to keep him up and send down one of the extra outfielders then I think that means they are going to give Norby a real shot. As I am writing this Stowers just left the game with wrist discomfort so the Orioles decision might have just been made for them lol.
Anyway Holliday is competing with Mateo, Urias and Norby for that starting second baseman job. Right now the job is Mateo’s but we saw last year he is capable of having a great hot stretch at the beginning of the season and also capable of falling into a multiple month long slump where he does absolutely nothing on offense.
Urias is hot right now and as I said the O’s clearly value him as a utility guy but I think that there is a definite ceiling on what he is going to give you which is why the fans are so excited for guys like Holliday and Norby who in theory provide you with a much higher ceiling.
Speaking of Norby should he remain in the Majors after Monday I think he will have a real shot at winning that second base job. As of right now his numbers don’t jump off the page but he has looked comfortable at the plate and he’s hit a lot of balls hard even if they haven’t all fallen in for hits. Should he out perform Mateo and Urias I think it would be hard to justify calling Holliday back up and handing second base to him at Norby’s expense. I will say that for Norby to be the reason that Holliday doesn’t get called up again this year he would have to play REALLY well, I’m talking OPS in the high .700s or better.
Another question is would the O’s consider calling up Holliday for a primarily bench role? I think this would only happen under a pretty extreme situation where one of the 3 of Mateo, Urias or Norby is just tearing it up but Holliday looked really good in triple A and the coaches feel like he’s improved on his first stint weaknesses. Outside of this exact scenario I think if Holliday comes back up it will be with the intention that he is going to be a starter.
Anyway I think the front office and the fans alike are hoping that Holliday earns another chance to get called up and takes that second base job and runs with it.
The Dishwasher 
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