Jackson Holliday 2024

[MDK02]

I’ll be pretty surprised if he’s not sent down. He’s not really showing much improvement, from my point of view. Don’t be surprised if he struggles a little even in AAA now because I think some of this is in his head right now. I feel for the kid, it’s a lot of pressure to be great right away and it’s really not that realistic at his age. 

[Fiver6565]

2 minutes ago, MDK02 said:

I’ll be pretty surprised if he’s not sent down. He’s not really showing much improvement, from my point of view. Don’t be surprised if he struggles a little even in AAA now because I think some of this is in his head right now. I feel for the kid, it’s a lot of pressure to be great right away and it’s really not that realistic at his age. 

I’m not sure there was that much pressure to be ‘great’. There’s a LOT of real estate between 1-30 and ‘great’. This conversation probably isn’t happening (or at least the tenor of it would be quite different) if he’s say 4-30 even, with a well struck ball or two. 
 

He doesn’t really need to do all that much to quiet this down. But he needs to do SOMETHING. 

[now]

32 minutes ago, vab said:

I think a big part of Holliday's struggles that nobody has really mentioned is all the hype. The kid's got to be really pressing at this point with everyone looking at him and wondering what's going on even if he's not really showing it. He obviously has dominated at every level of the minors but I think just getting away from all the eyeballs at the major league level will help him immensely. G-Rod had nothing to prove in the minors but you saw the difference when he came back. Same with Cowser. 

True. I've never seen hype like that before from MLB.com. Seems like, all spring, two days out of every three, Holliday's picture featured on the front page with an article touting his otherworldly greatness. Has to weigh on the kid. Especially given he looks so much the part of "a boy among men."

[Sanity Check]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

How does he adjust to ML pitching facing AAA pitching?

How did Grayson adjust to major league hitters by being sent down to face minor league hitters?

[RZNJ]

I blame it on the marriage.  He never struggled like this when he was single.  

[Pickles]

2 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

How did Grayson adjust to major league hitters by being sent down to face minor league hitters?

Exactly.  It's such a moronic talking point.

If you can't learn and improve in AAA, why does it even exist then?

[interloper]

Honestly, I sort of feel like the decision has already basically been made to send him down, and they're just waiting for the homestand. Because it would be slightly bad form to send him back to VA early instead of just waiting for the team to go back and optioning him on the off day. And they might as well get him two more starts in this series. 

Edited April 22 by interloper

[Sanity Check]

Maybe we also admit that he was called up after annihilating Charlotte's pitching staff, which the entire team did.....and then all the bats have come back to earth.  We will never know just how well Holliday would have hit the other teams' pitching that we don't seem to be dominating now in Norfolk.

Personally, I was tired of all of the garbage and prognosticating about how many more games we would win if Holliday was on the opening day roster, and how Elias was going to cost us a chance at the playoffs by not having the "best" team up here now.  The early struggles of a Henderson, Cowser, Stowers and Westburg weren't going to happen with this kid.  Think again.  Oh yeah, and Kjerstad is ready now......what's the definition of insanity?  You got it.

There were some who even suggested that Holliday would be the more natural shortstop for the organization with Gunnar being pushed to third base....and now, there are many who are somewhat critical that Jackson seems a bit tepid at 2B.  How the bloom has fallen off the rose......

As for patience with the kid, my Lord, we saw how they kept running Odor out there two years ago, and the patience with Mateo last year.

Honestly, maybe we would have gotten the same result, but I felt that Norby deserved the shot to be on the opening day roster, or Ortiz, if we hadn't traded him.

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, Sanity Check said:

How did Grayson adjust to major league hitters by being sent down to face minor league hitters?

Pitchers are a little different and Grayson was also coming off an injury (and in the SSS when he came back at the end of 2022, he didn’t look good) and looked terrible in ST.

Holliday is healthy (as far as we know) and lit it up in ST and then lit it up in the minors.

I think the Cowser example is better as it’s hitter to hitter but I also think people were overboard on Cowser last year.

[Malike]

6 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Exactly.  It's such a moronic talking point.

If you can't learn and improve in AAA, why does it even exist then?

It's not an apples-to-apples thing with pitchers. They can go down and work on mechanical issues and the results do not matter. If they are getting torched on the ML team, it causes losses. Holliday is not causing the team to lose.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Sanity Check said:

Maybe we also admit that he was called up after annihilating Charlotte's pitching staff, which the entire team did.....and then all the bats have come back to earth.  We will never know just how well Holliday would have hit the other teams' pitching that we don't seem to be dominating now in Norfolk.

Personally, I was tired of all of the garbage and prognosticating about how many more games we would win if Holliday was on the opening day roster, and how Elias was going to cost us a chance at the playoffs by not having the "best" team up here now.  The early struggles of a Henderson, Cowser, Stowers and Westburg weren't going to happen with this kid.  Think again.  Oh yeah, and Kjerstad is ready now......what's the definition of insanity?  You got it.

There were some who even suggested that Holliday would be the more natural shortstop for the organization with Gunnar being pushed to third base....and now, there are many who are somewhat critical that Jackson seems a bit tepid at 2B.  How the bloom has fallen off the rose......

As for patience with the kid, my Lord, we saw how they kept running Odor out there two years ago, and the patience with Mateo last year.

Honestly, maybe we would have gotten the same result, but I felt that Norby deserved the shot to be on the opening day roster, or Ortiz, if we hadn't traded him.

I don’t think the Charlotte games had anything to do with it. Most felt he should make the team out of ST.

[Sanity Check]

11 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

I blame it on the marriage.  He never struggled like this when he was single.  

Good point, I mean he's married now, so he's probably not having sex any more, so that can't be it

 

[Sanity Check]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I don’t think the Charlotte games had anything to do with it. Most felt he should make the team out of ST.

Seems like most were wrong based on the early results.

Jackson's spring training wasn't horrible.....batted .311, mostly leadoff if I recall correctly.  Maybe just put him in the leadoff spot and see if that might trigger something from him.  I can't really get any worse, right?

[CHIP]

Boston has a player named Bobby Dalbec.  28 yo.  6'4" 225.  2016 draft.  2020 debut.  893 career MLB ABs (.224 career avg) and 1838 MILB ABs (.262 avg).

This year, he started on MLB roster was sent down.  He went 1-7 in AAA and was called back up.  MLB this year, for an older veteran, he is 1-30 with 3 BBs and 18Ks.  In his 2 games in AAA he is 1-7 with 4Ks.

Dalbec didn't/doesn't get the hype that Holliday does but the struggle bus is real for more players not under the microscope that Holliday.

Baseball is not easy...

[SteveA]

12 minutes ago, interloper said:

Honestly, I sort of feel like the decision has already basically been made to send him down, and they're just waiting for the homestand. Because it would be slightly bad form to send him back to VA early instead of just waiting for the team to go back and optioning him on the off day. And they might as well get him two more starts in this series. 

We face two lefties so maybe just one more start.