Orioles can’t celebrate Jackson Holliday's progress until these flaws are fixed

On Tuesday, the Baltimore Orioles were officially eliminated from the postseason race thanks to wins from the Mariners and Astros. While the Orioles spent most of the season circling the drain in the American League, their official elimination was a harsh reminder of how much of a lost season this has been. 

With no postseason berth to hype up, the focus among the team and fanbase has started to shift toward the development of the team’s young stars. And although they do have some young stars to hype up as a part of that, it’s also worth remembering that not all of them are complete players; namely Jackson Holliday. 

At face value, Holliday’s put together a strong season. He’s likely going to finish just on the edge of a 20-20 season and has an OPS+ of 100, meaning he’s been perfectly league average. 

Not the kind of eye-popping numbers that you’d expect from a guy who was the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, but it’s an improvement over the rough season he had last year. However, his warts are still extremely evident.

Jackson Holliday still has some work to do before he can become a franchise cornerstone

While he has those 17 steals, he’s also been caught stealing 11 times, which is tied for the major league lead. While that’s always going to happen when you’re aggressive on the basepaths, usually it comes as a tradeoff to a high steal count (Chandler Simpson also has been caught 11 times, but he has 42 steals on the season). 

It’s nice to see Holliday make use of his speed (82nd percentile in sprint speed), but it’s clear he has yet to pick up on the nuances and pitcher tendencies that allow for all the best basestealers to be great. 

Holliday is also still a work in progress in the field. After spending his first eason with the Orioles as a shortstop, he switched over to second base ahead of the 2024 season, which provided a bit of an excuse for his struggles at the keystone. But things weren’t much better this year even after an offseason of training and focus. 

Holliday currently ranks in the fifth percentile in Outs Above Average (-7), the 28th percentile in arm strength and has committed 10 errors, which leads all major league second baseman. Moving Holliday to second base was a shrewd move to help him into the picture around the rest of the Orioles’ core, but he hasn’t passed the test thus far in his major league career. 

Lastly, he’s just not hitting the ball hard. Even though he has those 17 home runs, his hard-hit rate has dropped 4% compared to last year, while his barrel rate has gone up just .1%. Not the kind of growth that you want to see. 

Still, it’s important to remember that Holliday is only 21 and in his first full major league season. This is the first time he’s gone through the 162-game grind on the biggest stage in the world, and he’s also still getting used to facing major league hitters who have intel on how to beat him. 

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