Jackson Holliday 2024

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

1. Not much more really. It's not that I don't think he's going to hit, but no matter who he is and how "cool" he seems to remain, at some point he needs to just relax and get a reset. Every statcast metric showed he was ready for the big leagues but damn, I'm not sure I've ever seen a top prospect come up and get dominated like he has. It has not been pretty in almost anyway. I don't want to see the kid set a futility record and he's got to be close in starting a big league career.

Re: #1 and the futility record... I tend to think if he's looking like this approaching 50 AB, they will consider a move in part because "1-50" is not something you want people mentioning a lot. And it's tough to have that kind of easily-pointed-to round number bandied about in your early career. So if they can protect him from that, I think they will. It wouldn't be the main reason for sending him down, but yeah. 

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

It was kind of humorous because Ben McDonald had just been lauding Holliday’s advanced knowledge of the strike zone.   Oops!   

Literally as he finished the sentence... lol. 

[SteveA]

35 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

So what does he have to learn?

Sending guys down who struggle is not an uncommon thing.   Cedric Mullins went all the way back to AA.   Grayson Rodriguez went back down last year.   Colton Cowser went back down last year.  All those moves worked out pretty damn well.   What did they "have to learn"?

I hope he shows some signs of coming out of this in Anaheim, although we only face one RHP there.   But at some point I do think going back down has to become a consideration and  your knee-jerk, die-on-the-hill opposition to it is puzzling.

The start is reaching historic proprortions.   You have to go back over 3 decades to find ANY major leaguer with as low an OB% and OPS as Holliday in his first 9 games in the majors.   (Gary Disarcina 1990).

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It was kind of humorous because Ben McDonald had just been lauding Holliday’s advanced knowledge of the strike zone.   Oops!   

Ben has been very, very reluctant to criticize Holliday during these struggles. Then again Ben has been "Orioleized" a bit over the years anyways. Don't get me wrong, I like him and Brown for the most part, but when he was guest announcer, he was way more willing to say it like he saw it. Now, he's a little more reluctant to say anything that could be seen as negative.

I mean, he's not Hunter or Bordick, but he's more willing to just kind of ignore players who are struggling. 

 

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Sending guys down who struggle is not an uncommon thing.   Cedric Mullins went all the way back to AA.   Grayson Rodriguez went back down last year.   Colton Cowser went back down last year.  All those moves worked out pretty damn well.   What did they "have to learn"?

I hope he shows some signs of coming out of this in Anaheim, although we only face one RHP there.   But at some point I do think going back down has to become a consideration and  your knee-jerk, die-on-the-hill opposition to it is puzzling.

The start is reaching historic proprortions.   You have to go back over 3 decades to find ANY major leaguer with as low an OB% and OPS as Holliday in his first 9 games in the majors.   (Gary Disarcina 1990).

Agreed. I get the thinking that he has "nothing left to learn" at AAA because of the numbers he put up there, but the problem with that is it ignores the fact that big league pitchers are showing that he might have more to learn. 

There are some quality pitchers in AAA, so it's not like they are all awful. He's too good to to look this bad, so there is certainly a chance this is all in his head right now. That 3-2 take definitely gave me pause because it showed he was guessing.

Good major league hitters don't guess on 3-2 pitches. 

[Frobby]

Fangraphs’ Jon Becker weighs in:

I guess things could be one hitless at-bat worse for Jackson Holliday, but his 1-for-30 start to his major league career certainly isn’t how anyone envisioned things would turn out. He’s struck out in half of his plate appearances with just a pair of walks, and his average exit velocity is nearly two mph below the league average. Hey, at least he’s fast and has acclimated well to second base (3 outs above average).

Fortunately, the Orioles haven’t needed Holliday to be a superstar right away. He’s hit eighth or ninth in every game he’s played, and that’s as much about easing him in as it is about the rest of the ridiculous hitting talent on the O’s roster. Holliday went 0-for-3 with a walk in Baltimore’s 5-0 win over the Royals on Sunday, but the other eight batters in that game’s lineup enter this week with the following wRC+ numbers: 159, 120, 154, 119, 159, 138, 239, and 199, respectively. Yes, the seven and eight hitters (Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg) in that lineup are Baltimore’s two most productive offensive players right now — and yet it’s completely justifiable to hit them there considering the performances and pedigree of everyone else.

It’s too early to say if the Orioles should pull the plug on Holliday and let him get some confidence back in Triple-A, but the point here is that they really don’t have to. Yes, you’d like everyone in your lineup to be productive, but Baltimore can afford to let him figure things out at the big league level.

[Satyr3206]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

Agreed. I get the thinking that he has "nothing left to learn" at AAA because of the numbers he put up there, but the problem with that is it ignores the fact that big league pitchers are showing that he might have more to learn. 

There are some quality pitchers in AAA, so it's not like they are all awful. He's too good to to look this bad, so there is certainly a chance this is all in his head right now. That 3-2 take definitely gave me pause because it showed he was guessing.

Good major league hitters don't guess on 3-2 pitches. 

I agree. with a 3-2 count you have to be ready for anything and make contact. Waiting on a pitch earlier in the count is fine but not 3-2.

[interloper]

While I've been as supportive of him as anyone, I tend to think this or Oakland might be his final series if he isn't showing any signs of anything. Too early to say who we will be facing when NY comes to town, but there's at least a chance of both Cortes and Rodon. So if you're going to sit him against those guys, you might as well call up an extra RH hitter and kill 2 birds. And if I'm NY, I'm trying to get the rotation to lineup against all of our lefties. 

Edited April 22 by interloper

[capyy]

13 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Fangraphs’ Jon Becker weighs in:

 

It’s too early to say if the Orioles should pull the plug on Holliday and let him get some confidence back in Triple-A, but the point here is that they really don’t have to. Yes, you’d like everyone in your lineup to be productive, but Baltimore can afford to let him figure things out at the big league level.

This doesn't make sense to me. The orioles are in the AL east, and aren't even in 1st place. Every game matters in this division and they are in the easy part of the schedule right now.

 

Just because they have been able to "afford to let him figure things out" the past few games doesn't mean they will be able to tomorrow. 

 

If they were in the AL central with a 5 game lead maybe you argue otherwise. 

[baltfan]

25 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Ben has been very, very reluctant to criticize Holliday during these struggles. Then again Ben has been "Orioleized" a bit over the years anyways. Don't get me wrong, I like him and Brown for the most part, but when he was guest announcer, he was way more willing to say it like he saw it. Now, he's a little more reluctant to say anything that could be seen as negative.

I mean, he's not Hunter or Bordick, but he's more willing to just kind of ignore players who are struggling. 

 

He did mention that he might have to modify the leg kick and noted that Alex Bregman had to do so.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

21 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Agreed. I get the thinking that he has "nothing left to learn" at AAA because of the numbers he put up there, but the problem with that is it ignores the fact that big league pitchers are showing that he might have more to learn. 

There are some quality pitchers in AAA, so it's not like they are all awful. He's too good to to look this bad, so there is certainly a chance this is all in his head right now. That 3-2 take definitely gave me pause because it showed he was guessing.

Good major league hitters don't guess on 3-2 pitches. 

This is why I want the Orioles to give Jackson another week or two to turn this around before sending him back to Norfolk. If it's more a mental block than anything else then maybe the light switch will turn on and fast. Also the team is still winning despite Jackson being a complete black hole on offense. 

[baltfan]

My leash would be through the Oakland series.  Oakland is not a good ballclub.  Give him a chance to get it going against them.  If he shows no signs, send him down.  If starts to show some signs, then keep him up.

[baltfan]

26 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Agreed. I get the thinking that he has "nothing left to learn" at AAA because of the numbers he put up there, but the problem with that is it ignores the fact that big league pitchers are showing that he might have more to learn. 

There are some quality pitchers in AAA, so it's not like they are all awful. He's too good to to look this bad, so there is certainly a chance this is all in his head right now. That 3-2 take definitely gave me pause because it showed he was guessing.

Good major league hitters don't guess on 3-2 pitches. 

Have you noticed anything different about his swing in MLB vs. the minors?

[Bemorewins]

2 minutes ago, baltfan said:

My leash would be through the Oakland series.  Oakland is not a good ballclub.  Give him a chance to get it going against them.  If he shows no signs, send him down.  If starts to show some signs, then keep him up.

I can't find any fault with this approach. I will say though, if the issue is we need more productivity/stability from his spot in the order, the easiest fix is Urias (if Holliday is sent down). If we bring up another INF prospect we are likely running the same risk of having another couple of weeks of lower productivity while that player figures things out.

Then we will have posters on here scrutinizing them and saying "we should have just stuck with Holliday because he's killing AAA now." I can see it coming.

[Safelykept]

23 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

1. Not much more really. It's not that I don't think he's going to hit, but no matter who he is and how "cool" he seems to remain, at some point he needs to just relax and get a reset. Every statcast metric showed he was ready for the big leagues but damn, I'm not sure I've ever seen a top prospect come up and get dominated like he has. It has not been pretty in almost anyway. I don't want to see the kid set a futility record and he's got to be close in starting a big league career.

2. Could be, but man is he pulling off the ball. He's guessing now and that's never a good thing. Watching that 3-2 center-cut fastball tells me he was literally guessing slider instead of see ball, hit ball. How can this kind of whiff and futility not get into any non-robot's head?

3. I'm not a hitting mechanics guy, but I can see his front half leaking out, even on fastballs. He's pulling off everything right now instead of letting the ball travel and trying to go the other way. He leaked at times in the minors too, but he hit the ball to all fields there. Nobody expected him to look this way at the major league level.

The kid is too talented to not hit, but he may need a reset. The Orioles are doing fine with him struggling, but I'd hate to see him end up putting up historically bad numbers to start a major league career. I'd probably send him down and bring up Norby to play 2B.

But they know him better than I do so I can't get too upset over what they do or don't do. But it's hard to watch right now.

 

 

Another good post, and you said it , you have never seen a prospect of his caliber struggle the way he has. But theres history of smart Orgs  Swinging and missing on cant miss 1/1 prospects, and not saying that Holliday will be the next one. Tim Beckman comes   to mind, And from another sport NFL and Steroids were involved but he checked all the boxes as well his name was Tony Mandrich. Just saying another 2 weeks of this and other will be lighting up the skyes of there boards. Sure glad we didn't pick that guy that Baltimore Picked