By Brittany Ghiroli, Sam Blum and Alex Andrejev
The Baltimore Orioles have selected infielder Jackson Holliday — the No. 1 pick in the 2022 MLB Draft — to Triple-A Norfolk after 10 major league games, the team announced Friday.
The Orioles called up Holliday, who ranked No. 1 AthleticismKeith Law’s Top 100 MLB Prospects for 2024, earlier this month. He’s slashing .059/.111/.059 with two hits and 18 strikeouts in 34 at-bats this season. Additionally, Holliday misses 49.2 percent of his swings and 59.4 percent of the fastballs he throws. His zone contact rate was 64.9 percent (82 percent is league average).
In his Orioles debut against the Boston Red Sox on April 10, Holliday started at second base and batted ninth in the 7–5 victory. He went 0 for 4 while driving in a run with a groundout, and turned into a double play in the second inning, but then missed a field goal with his back to the infield.
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In corresponding moves Friday, Baltimore selected the contract of outfielder Ryan McKenna from Triple-A Norfolk and designated catcher David Bañuelos for assignment.
We have made the following roster changes: pic.twitter.com/gatOuLknN9
– Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 26, 2024
How to visualize the move
Holliday isn’t the first top prospect to start his big league career in questionable fashion. Alex Bregman, Kris Bryant, and Derek Jeter all struggled and/or were demoted and all had pretty impressive careers.
Holliday will get a chance to settle back into Triple-A, where he was raking before his promotion, and he’s undoubtedly a big part of the Orioles’ future. The last thing the organization wants to do is harm his psyche or cause him to question himself. — Britt Ghiroli, MLB Senior Writer
The Orioles are a first-place team, trying to win baseball’s toughest division for the second year in a row. There are a lot of calculations that need to be made before making a decision as important as this. But the most important of them is to do what is best for the team. Another question is how a team thinks the player will handle a demotion. Holliday understood that he was in trouble and that he was responsible. If there’s a 20-year-old equipped to handle this, it’s him. He thought his attack was reaching a milestone. But ultimately, this move reflects the fact that the Orioles’ active roster is not currently a place where a struggling young player can thrive. — Sam Blum, MLB Editor-in-Chief
Required reading
(Photo: Kim Klement Neitzel / USA Today)