Promotion makes O's Holliday youngest player in High-A

BALTIMORE -- Well, that didn’t take very long.

The Orioles on Monday promoted Jackson Holliday, their No. 2 prospect and MLB’s No. 10 overall prospect per MLB Pipeline, from Single-A Delmarva to High-A Aberdeen. Holliday dominated this season at Delmarva, where the 19-year-old slashed .392/.523/.667 with nine extra-base hits in his first 51 at-bats of 2023.

Holliday also walked (14) more than he struck out (12) in his second crack at the level, where he made a brief 12-game affiliated-ball debut in 2022 after the Orioles selected him first overall in the ’22 Draft. In 25 career games at Delmarva, Holliday hit .323 with a 1.000 OPS, also proving sound defensively at both shortstop and second base.

That’s called being ready for the next step.

“He played very well in Delmarva and showed that he’s one of the best players in the league in, really, all indicators, and that he needed to be challenged more appropriately,” Baltimore director of player development Matt Blood said. “This is the right time to do it.”

Shortly after signing last summer with Baltimore for $8.19 million, a record for a high schooler coming out of the MLB Draft, Holliday declared his intent to reach the Majors “as fast as possible.” He’s certainly done nothing to slow down his timeline, either at Delmarva or Orioles Spring Training this year, where he made an excellent impression on the big league club while being easily the youngest player in camp. He’s now also the youngest player in High-A, beating out Padres No. 7 prospect Victor Lizarraga (Fort Wayne) by four days for that title.

Holliday, the son of former All-Star outfielder Matt Holliday, will face a much greater challenge in High-A, where some previous top Baltimore prospects have struggled a bit to start. Gunnar Henderson hit .231 in his 65-game stint with Aberdeen in 2021, which included a 1-for-31 slump over his first 11 contests with the IronBirds. Adley Rutschman began his ‘19 tenure with Aberdeen 3-for-22 over his first six games.

“High-A’s a big jump from Low-A; we’ve seen that with most players we’ve sent up there,” Blood said. “We feel like it’ll be a challenge for [Holliday], and we expect him to have some growing pains. But he’ll work through it, I believe, and it should be really good for him.”

Holliday survived several rounds of roster cuts in big league Spring Training, then came out of the gate white-hot once the Shorebirds’ season began. His best performance of the young season came on April 21, when Holliday enjoyed his first career multi-homer game by cranking two opposite-field shots in a rout of Fredericksburg. He’ll now join several members of the Orioles’ 2022 Draft class in Aberdeen, including No. 10 prospect Dylan Beavers, third baseman Max Wagner (No. 13), outfielder Jud Fabian (No. 16) and catcher Silas Ardoin (No. 30).

Late in Spring Training, Holliday stated that his 2023 goal is to make it to Double-A. In order to reach Bowie, though, he’ll likely need to excel for an extended period with Aberdeen.

“I think that’s an ambitious goal,” Blood said. “We’ve seen it done before with some players that started in Delmarva and finished in Bowie in one season. I’m not going to say it’s not possible. But we feel like a long exposure to High-A will be really productive for him.”

Considering how talented Holliday is at such a young age, it’s best not to rule anything out. After all, he’s already earned rave reviews from the Orioles’ big league staff and is likely to keep standing out during his ascent through the organization.

“Sounds like he got off to a great start in Low-A, and we’re happy he’s being promoted,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said. “He was really impressive in Major League Spring Training and showed extremely well. He’s going to be a really good player, but he’s still, what, 19? It was fun to watch him, fun to be around him this spring, and he’s a very talented kid.”