There isn’t a team in baseball that has put together as exciting of a young core of positional players as the Baltimore Orioles.
After some brutal years on the field resulted in selecting high in the MLB draft, the Orioles made the most of their selections. They have a Major League roster full of homegrown talent who have already reached All-Star level production.
The player they are hoping can achieve that level of success next is infielder Jackson Holliday.
The No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft out of Stillwater High School in Stillwater, Okla., quickly became one of the top prospects in the game. When he made his MLB debut in 2024, not even two years after being selected, he was the No. 1 ranked prospect in the game.
Unfortunately, his first taste of the Big Leagues was a sour one.
Holliday struggled mightily, eventually getting sent back down to Triple-A to figure things out. He made his way back to Baltimore, but his rookie campaign wasn’t pretty.
Holliday finished 2024 with a .189/.255/.311 slash line with five home runs, four doubles, two triples, 23 RBI and four walks in 208 plate appearances. He finished with a 0.1 WAR and OPS+ of 64.
Thus far in 2025, settled into a starting role at second base alongside Gunnar Henderson at shortstop, the former top prospect is starting to realize his immense potential.
He has improved across the board with a .272/.331/.449 slash line. Holliday has already matched his double and triple totals from 2024 and surpassed his home run total, hitting six, despite making 48 fewer plate appearances.
His WAR is at 0.8 and he has a strong 126 OPS+.
The approach he has at the plate looks to have been adjusted, along with a slight change to his batting stance, all paying dividends. He has seen an impressive drop in his strikeout percentage and is hitting the ball harder with more regularity.
One reason that could be happening is that Holliday has embraced an all fields approach with his swing path.
As shared by David Adler of MLB.com, he has one of the most extreme “oppo” attack direction swing paths in baseball at eight degrees. That is tied with Rafael Devers of the Boston Red Sox and Gabriel Moreno of the Arizona Diamondbacks, behind only Brice Turang of the Milwaukee Brewers.
The adjustment seems to be working well for Holliday, who has been one of the lone bright spots in a disastrous season for the franchise, where they look like likely sellers in the coming weeks.
Holliday won’t be on the move, but he could have some teammates being traded in the near future.
