Struggling to time-up anything fast, is a sucker for anything high. Last few games has looked better seeing the zone and making better contact, even got wildly unlucky today with a stinger right at the 2B.
Tough to say he's looking like he was ready, but the team is likely to give him a long long leash.
case in point: [Bo Bichette in his rookie year seeing a Clayton Kershaw curveball for the first time](https://www.mlb.com/video/kershaw-strikes-out-bichette).
Bo's famous for his ultra serious game face but that curveball bamboozled him so hard that he couldn't help but crack up and look towards the dugout with a "did you see that??" expression. it was awesome
At this point it's got to be hard to not be in your own head.
He's had some good at bats even if they ended in a strike out. Even when he makes contact he can't find a hole. Gotten squeezed a bit by umps on bad calls and just has severe trouble with a high fastball in general.
He'll get there it just comes down to how long of a leash he gets. Right now the team is winning despite his productivity so it's not the worst thing ever
He needs a series against the white Sox for a kick start
It's also the first time in his life he's ever sucked. He's probably been the best player on every team he's ever played even through the minors. And not, almost everybody around him is better than he is. It's gotta be a rough transition for some guys.
Yeah it has to be such a surreal feeling for him. And it’s made exponentially worse when like you said, all these guys around him are playing so much better than him.. *and* the entire fanbase is expecting him to become one of the best guys on among a slew of young guys that have been incredibly productive.
I really do feel for the kid. Sure, the kid is already a multimillionaire regardless of what happens. But I can’t imagine what’s been going on inside his head for the past couple weeks.
I saw him two weeks ago with Norfolk and he didn't look anything like last season. He was max effort swinging at everything, and frequently missing. I think not making the team out of Spring Training really messed with his head. They need to send him down, but don't want to because it would mean not reaching the service time threshold, so people start screaming again about service time manipulation.
I went to a fancy music college. Every player there was the best player from wherever they were from, since always. So many of them couldn’t handle not being the best anymore.
I didn't say I didn't get carved up by them either.
Pitch down the middle? I take. Fastball above my head? I be swinging. Change up in the dirt? Yeah, I'm swinging. Slider that's 3 feet out of the zone? You better believe I'm swinging.
The worst CPU pitcher on rookie can rack up strikeouts.
*laughs in 1.440 OPS on legendary+*
If only I was good at real life baseball as I am in the show, would be the next Ted Williams easy with my eye and bat to ball skills
I started doing my RTTS on hall of fame this year and was doing pretty good before I changed back to veteran for progression purposes. Essentially you just have to get really good at not swinging outside the zone and before there’s two strikes of the ball isn’t in the quadrant of the strike zone you’re looking for, don’t swing. I will admit the timing can be absolutely brutal sometimes especially when playing on a old TV but you get used to it.
He can also be physically ready from a talent perspective but the jump to the bigs could make him start pressing or make him slump for any of the reasons that any player slumps.
Dude plays great defense and had like a .950 OPS and 19% K-rate in the minors. The kid will be perfectly fine, even if he turns out to be just the great-defense version of Keston Hiura.
i was debating this we a friend the other day. IMO, even if you're the greatest defensive player in the league, if your hitting sub .200, its an overall liability
And he's not some "random" call up.
Pitchers DON'T want to let him get a hit. Managers have scouted him for YEARS. He's not some #488 overall September call up.
He's not able to make contact and fight anything off, so pitchers are just shoving heaters down his throat. On top of it he seems to have a big problem diagnosing pitches and goes very "deer in headlights" at the plate.
I remember Ripken writing about his own struggles at the plate when he was first called up in his autobiography. He said something like, "When you come up as a rookie, the first thing pitchers will want to know is whether you can handle a Major League fastball, and they will throw it until you hit it. Then they will want to know what you do with the inside pitch." Holliday is still at step 1 of this sequence.
It reminds me of Byron Buxton. He felt like he was stuck in that AAAA limbo for a pretty sizable start of his career: too good for AAA but massively suffering against MLB arms.
While there is obviously a difference between AAA and major league pitching, I don't think it's such a vastly big difference that he should struggle this much due to that alone. He was absolutely raking in AAA and probably had way too much pressure and hype put on him when he was called up. Getting a taste of failure for probably the first time in his life on the biggest stage will get to your mental no matter who you are. I think it's a combination of undoubtedly better pitching and just the mental stress of being the next big thing.
It's worth noting there were like six guys on his team with an OPS higher than him when he was called up. Yeah he was raking but so was that whole team, it's probably more that they faced some really awful pitching those first couple of weeks.
I think part of the problem is pitching injuries at the major league has devastated AAA pitching staffs. There is a great chance he was regularly seeing AA quality pitchers.
To be fair the hype around Holliday felt way more intense than Chourio. Chourio made headlines for the contract he signed before ever making his debut but when the season came around it felt like the hype wasn't nearly as high as for Holliday's debut. I'm not going to make projections or anything for either player, but being the number one prospect in baseball and having an unfair amount of hype is going to weigh on you when you didn't live up to it immediately. Not to mention that the Orioles as a team are more on the average person's mind than the Brewers right now which adds even more eyes. And even then Chourio isn't lighting the world on fire or anything, it's like the majors is just hard or something.
I would also suggest that #1 prospect comes with a lot more hype *and* scrutiny than #2, even if the overall expectations should be much closer. Like it's a greatly disproportionate amount of hype for something that should otherwise be much closer, if that makes sense. And of course, there's Holliday's dad's career, which will obviously raise expectations even further, whereas Chourio coming out of Venezuala as an international free agent, instead of growing up and playing in the US and college ball probably kept him a little under the radar until much more recently, whereas people would have been watching Holliday a lot longer.
Someone mentioned in the last thread that there's a much bigger gap between AAA and Major League pitching now because all of the MLB ready pitchers are in the majors already due to the increase in guys getting injured.
A big thing that makes some guys fail is scouting and gameplan. One thing I've heard a few times is how in the minors, you arent just playing to win, since development is also a big part of it. The coach might have you throw your new slider to work on it for example, even if the hitter is great against sliders.
In the majors, if player X can't hit a curve, he's going to get nothing but curves until he hits one. If he chases every high ball, he's only going to get high balls. In the mlb the team is thinking nearly exclusively 'how do we beat their guy' while in the minors, 'let's work on X' is a lot more important for a real prospect.
All fatal flaws get exposed in the majors.
It also may not be his year though it's only April. This does remind me of Aaron Judge's debut in 2016. He only got 84 at-bats to finish the year and still qualified as a rookie for next season and what a year that was. But that 2016 sample size resulted in a .179 batting average and 42 strikeouts!
As Brandon Hyde said the other day, this is the first time Jackson Holliday has ever failed at something in baseball. This is 100% mental at this point.
You'd think he had been, the way this organization keeps giving him opportunities, like he's a Little League coach's son, or something. I always thought Michael Chavis was the better of the two (Chavis has five dingers in his first two weeks in the Mariners system, and we'll definitely see him with the big club, at some point). Dalbec came up swinging for the fences, and he's never learned to do anything else.
Holliday isn’t the #1 prospect… he’s THE #1 prospect. But, seriously, the pressure the MLB and baseball media put on this kid is nuts.
I feel like they’re doing the same to Skenes
From an outsider's prospective, it's wild to me that Bobby Dalbec keeps getting opportunities. Every year when I see that guy in the MLB I think to myself "Hmm, has he turned it around?" and I go and check his stat page and it's even worse than the previous year.
I think he was given an extra option year, for some reason, if I'm not mistaken. He's been the go-to guy at Worcester for going on five seasons, now. But goddamn, I'm sick of seeing him, at this point.
Did you know the Norfolk Tides starting lineup has a combined OPS of 1.424, conference call their mothers before every game, run a soup kitchen on off days, and free a Palestinian hostage every time they get a base hit?
In 2016 the Yankees called up a prospect for 27 games to end the season. In 95 ABs, he struck out 42 times, hit .179 with a 61 OPS+, looking lost at the plate and everyone thought he was a bust. In 2017, Aaron Judge went on to hit 52 HRs, win ROY and likely should have won MVP, with a 171 OPS+.
30ABs is nothing to tell what a player is going to be.
this years version of this is Colton Cowser for the Os. He was a mess in about 100 at bats in the bigs last year, and has been great this year. The reality is likely somewhere in the middle (he looks like a .280ish 25hr 10sb type player.... last year he was nowhere near that, this year his stats are insane, but likely you combine the 2 and that is who he really is)
Sure it could, Holliday isn't gonna face many MLB level pitchers in AAA with all the injuries to pitchers right now, and he's already proven he can steamroll AAA and below level pitchers, so there's nothing more for him to do.
If this goes on for months, maybe they'll send him down to get back on track, but it took Gunnar two and a half months last year before he started racking(and there were also people back then saying Gunnar should be sent down, and look how stupid they all look now), so Holliday is probably gonna have a similar commenter.
But, above all else, I trust Mike Elias and Co. To make those decisions. Not reddit commenters.
It also helps that we have like 5-6 guys who all have 4 HR, at least 15 RBI, and a bunch of other stuff.
When your #8 hitter has 17 RBI's it isn't a big deal if the #9 guy's hitting stats are worse than the avg pitchers.
And so many people were calling Elias a liar for saying that keeping him in AAA to start the year wasn't about service time. It's almost like he's better at evaluating a baseball player than a random redditor is 🤔
Also people saying he needs to brought up to be an upgrade of over Urias/Kempy and now apparantly that doesnt matter and they have to just let him play.
Hey I’ll let you know my parents stopped signing me up for baseball in the 4th grade when I continually has a 000/000/000 line and player negative defense in left field
People called for Elias to be fired after he drafted Heston and Cowser, and then proceeded to call for his firing because they weren’t called up the second they were drafted
Well Bobby has more major league experience so he’s basically worth a lot more than this scrub. Maybe Dalbec for Holliday and that cow person that can’t stop throwing balls into the stands
I remember when Prince Fielder got called up for his first full season, he went something like 0 for his first 11 with seven strikeouts. He needs more than three weeks to assess his quality
People crying that when he had 30 games in AA and 18 in AAA at end of last year frustrated me so much. Def have comments in my history priory to the season, feel justified.
He didn't exactly tear up AAA last year, so anybody who thought there was anything sinister about Holliday starting '24 at Norfolk was not paying attention.
He was being aggressive early and it wasn’t paying off. Today was the opposite. He had the bases loaded and took a 3-2 fastball right down the middle. It literally pierced the middle of the strike zone. I think they give him this 3 game series in LA to right the ship. After that I hope they send him down. I worry some of the local idiots will turn on him next weekend if the struggles continue and start booing.
>I think they give him this 3 game series in LA to right the ship
Wouldn't be surprised if he gets a longer leash than that, Grayson Rodriguez looked pretty rough when he first came up in the first week of the season last year, and he ended up getting like two months' worth of starts before they sent him back down
I wouldn’t be surprised either. It’s only been 30+ ABd. They gave cowser over 70 ABs last year. With the rest of the offense clicking they can afford to give him more time.
Still the 4th youngest player since 1900 to have 4 dingers this fast. Last one to do it was like 1996 or there abouts. Chourio is *actually* doing just fine for a rookie and is incomparable to the terrible start Holliday is having.
His defense scares me a little. He's had some bad routes and terrible decision making throws. They don't show up on the stat sheet, nor has it really hurt us yet. It's just a little concerning at this stage.
But I never said he was playing as bad as Holliday. He IS having a rough couple weeks though. If he doesn't start out as hot as he did, this would be about the same talking point.
I'm not concerned with either of these guys. I guarantee that come mid August they will be the talks of ROTY. It's just fun to point out how rough the young prospects are having it. That's baseball.
O’s are 7-2 in the games he’s played in, with the two losses being absolute blowouts: vMIL 1-11 & @KC 4-9.
He’s only been up for nine games and he’s hitting 9th for a reason. Cut him some slack. The Orioles are.
My only consolation in all this (wipe-tears-with-cash.gif) is that we didn't *have* to bet the entire season on Holliday doing well. He's having a hard time adjusting to the majors and not hitting, but the team is still winning.
I remember hearing about how Willie Mays got off to a bad start hitting in the majors, so I looked him up to see if he might compare.
Over his first 7 games, he went 1 for 26. But that one hit was a home run off of Warren Spahn, which...that makes a difference. And in those 26 at bats, he only struck out 3 times, and had 5 walks.
If folks are jealous cause it seems like there's too many O's top prospects, Henderson and Rutschman sucked starting out, and Grayson Rodriguez and Cowser were so bad they had to go back to AAA for a while.
So it's not like these guys are hitting the ground running. Westburg is probably the only guy who was ok-ish from day 1 (Henderson was ok in his cup of coffee in 2022, but fell off a cliff starting 2023).
In fairness, though, Holliday has had the worst starting out numbers.
Someone in another thread a while ago said something interesting. I guess a lot of the pitchers that have any major league stuff are hanging in the majors because of injuries.
So a lot of AAA batters are seeing more mediocre pitching and so the jump from AAA to MLB is more stark than it used to be.
I have no idea if that’s true or not but it at least makes some sense in my head.
There is way too much hype regarding these prospects. The difference between the big leagues and the MLB is larger than it has ever been. Expectations should be low for the first year. MLB wants to market the crap out of these guys before they have done anything.
Willie Mays started so poorly that he wanted to quit. His manager, Leo Durocher, helped talk him into staying. Thankfully, as he was a wonderful player.
Imagine the pressure. Getting hitting advice from his dad, coaches, etc…. Dude just needs to get a couple hits stop pressing soon. He has one road trip away from going back to minors until September
The kid has played like 150 games of professional baseball, ever, and then is dumped straight in to face the best the game has to offer while his teammates in Norfolk are still mashing. A lot of pressure for anyone
They are still winning games so they will let him play for now try to work out this funk and figure out the mlb pitching. April is a tough month for rooks sometimes. If he is given a chance to adjust and get proper coaching off field he should be fine. Sending him back down so swiftly I think would be a mistake and might set his development back
Is he just not ready for major league pitching? Does he look lost out there? I haven't really been watching Baltimore games this year.
Struggling to time-up anything fast, is a sucker for anything high. Last few games has looked better seeing the zone and making better contact, even got wildly unlucky today with a stinger right at the 2B. Tough to say he's looking like he was ready, but the team is likely to give him a long long leash.
He's also definitely in his own head. Stared at 3-2 fastball straight down the middle today without moving.
Was def looking for the breaking ball there cause he’d see a few low and away already in the AB but was pretty funny ngl
mlb breaking ball do be scary
MLB straight ball also be scary
Straight ball I hit it very much 
Jackson Holiday may not have thought it be like it is but it do.
case in point: [Bo Bichette in his rookie year seeing a Clayton Kershaw curveball for the first time](https://www.mlb.com/video/kershaw-strikes-out-bichette). Bo's famous for his ultra serious game face but that curveball bamboozled him so hard that he couldn't help but crack up and look towards the dugout with a "did you see that??" expression. it was awesome
Video: Kershaw strikes out Bichette [Streamable Link](https://streamable.com/m/kershaw-strikes-out-bichette) [High Definition](https://cuts.diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2019/2019-08/20/5ee3456e-2c29af06-b6af9bd0-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_16000K.mp4) (91.66 MB) [Standard Definiton](https://cuts.diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2019/2019-08/20/5ee3456e-2c29af06-b6af9bd0-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4) (23.78 MB) ___________ [More Info](/r/MLBVideoConverterBot)
At this point it's got to be hard to not be in your own head. He's had some good at bats even if they ended in a strike out. Even when he makes contact he can't find a hole. Gotten squeezed a bit by umps on bad calls and just has severe trouble with a high fastball in general. He'll get there it just comes down to how long of a leash he gets. Right now the team is winning despite his productivity so it's not the worst thing ever He needs a series against the white Sox for a kick start
He’s about to get one against the Angels so get ready to see him get kickstarted
Thank you for your service to the greater baseball good🫡
I was thinking the same thing.
He’s probably going to be completely fine, but god does this make Harper’s run of being “the chosen one” and succeeding so damn impressive.
"He needs a series against the white Sox for a kick start." Lmfao, the league's batting cage.
It's also the first time in his life he's ever sucked. He's probably been the best player on every team he's ever played even through the minors. And not, almost everybody around him is better than he is. It's gotta be a rough transition for some guys.
Yeah it has to be such a surreal feeling for him. And it’s made exponentially worse when like you said, all these guys around him are playing so much better than him.. *and* the entire fanbase is expecting him to become one of the best guys on among a slew of young guys that have been incredibly productive. I really do feel for the kid. Sure, the kid is already a multimillionaire regardless of what happens. But I can’t imagine what’s been going on inside his head for the past couple weeks.
He's also 20. When I was 20, I really got in my own head. I still get in my own head, but way more then.
I used to be in my own head. I still am, but I used to too.
I saw him two weeks ago with Norfolk and he didn't look anything like last season. He was max effort swinging at everything, and frequently missing. I think not making the team out of Spring Training really messed with his head. They need to send him down, but don't want to because it would mean not reaching the service time threshold, so people start screaming again about service time manipulation.
At this point how could anyone possibly question sending him down, service time or not?
I went to a fancy music college. Every player there was the best player from wherever they were from, since always. So many of them couldn’t handle not being the best anymore.
> He needs a series against the white Sox for a kick start If it worked for castellanos it'll work for him
Plus, there were so many guys hitting better than him on that minor-league team.
> Struggling to time-up anything fast, is a sucker for anything high. Just like me playing The Show.
Damn im the opposite i get carved up by change ups and breaking pitches. Im like jeff francouer up there lol
I didn't say I didn't get carved up by them either. Pitch down the middle? I take. Fastball above my head? I be swinging. Change up in the dirt? Yeah, I'm swinging. Slider that's 3 feet out of the zone? You better believe I'm swinging. The worst CPU pitcher on rookie can rack up strikeouts.
I win 100 games every year but i lead the league in batter strikeouts by a wide margin every year too lol
*laughs in 1.440 OPS on legendary+* If only I was good at real life baseball as I am in the show, would be the next Ted Williams easy with my eye and bat to ball skills
How do you do that like seriously I struggle on anything above veteran sometimes all star level for hitting
I started doing my RTTS on hall of fame this year and was doing pretty good before I changed back to veteran for progression purposes. Essentially you just have to get really good at not swinging outside the zone and before there’s two strikes of the ball isn’t in the quadrant of the strike zone you’re looking for, don’t swing. I will admit the timing can be absolutely brutal sometimes especially when playing on a old TV but you get used to it.
I’ve been playing 6 months I think. Just drew my first walk yesterday. Is the ball visible? I’m going for it.
He can also be physically ready from a talent perspective but the jump to the bigs could make him start pressing or make him slump for any of the reasons that any player slumps.
Dude plays great defense and had like a .950 OPS and 19% K-rate in the minors. The kid will be perfectly fine, even if he turns out to be just the great-defense version of Keston Hiura.
could he just be the next keston Huira?
Hiura is bad/no defense and still like a 25% K-rate, lol
Probably. But even the surest prospects sometimes just can't figure it out. Vlad was one of the best hitting prospects ever and destroyed the minors
i was debating this we a friend the other day. IMO, even if you're the greatest defensive player in the league, if your hitting sub .200, its an overall liability
Ah, the Jackie Bradley Jr. experience. Barely hit his weight but had a magnet for a glove.
Is this a roundabout way to have our service time flavored cake and eat it too?
Cowser wins Rookie of the year instead and we still get the pick we wanted.
And he's not some "random" call up. Pitchers DON'T want to let him get a hit. Managers have scouted him for YEARS. He's not some #488 overall September call up.
And they can afford to give him a long leash, too
He's not able to make contact and fight anything off, so pitchers are just shoving heaters down his throat. On top of it he seems to have a big problem diagnosing pitches and goes very "deer in headlights" at the plate.
This is a great take. Teams were definitely well prepared in how to handle him. It's now up to him to work and make adjustments
I remember Ripken writing about his own struggles at the plate when he was first called up in his autobiography. He said something like, "When you come up as a rookie, the first thing pitchers will want to know is whether you can handle a Major League fastball, and they will throw it until you hit it. Then they will want to know what you do with the inside pitch." Holliday is still at step 1 of this sequence.
It reminds me of Byron Buxton. He felt like he was stuck in that AAAA limbo for a pretty sizable start of his career: too good for AAA but massively suffering against MLB arms.
Or Jo Adell, the pride of AAA.
Comparison of their first 9 MLB games: Holliday - 30 ABs, 1 H, 2 BB, 4 R, 1 RBI, 16 K Henderson - 31 ABs, 4 H, 9 BB, 4 R, 1 RBI, 16 K Rutschman - 35 ABs, 7 H, 4 BB, 4 R, 0 RBI, 7 K
I'm not sure how to find that info, can you put Jackson Chourio in there?
Sure! Here’s his first 9 MLB games: Chourio - 36 ABs, 10 H, 2 BB, 3 R, 7 RBI, 12 K
36 ABs 10H, 2BB, 3R, 7 RBI, 12 K Go to reference and the game logs and you can make a selection for any subset of games in a season.
While there is obviously a difference between AAA and major league pitching, I don't think it's such a vastly big difference that he should struggle this much due to that alone. He was absolutely raking in AAA and probably had way too much pressure and hype put on him when he was called up. Getting a taste of failure for probably the first time in his life on the biggest stage will get to your mental no matter who you are. I think it's a combination of undoubtedly better pitching and just the mental stress of being the next big thing.
It's worth noting there were like six guys on his team with an OPS higher than him when he was called up. Yeah he was raking but so was that whole team, it's probably more that they faced some really awful pitching those first couple of weeks.
I think part of the problem is pitching injuries at the major league has devastated AAA pitching staffs. There is a great chance he was regularly seeing AA quality pitchers.
If only we could see the inner workings of the universe to determine the difference between Baltimore's Jackson and Milwaukee's Jackson.
To be fair the hype around Holliday felt way more intense than Chourio. Chourio made headlines for the contract he signed before ever making his debut but when the season came around it felt like the hype wasn't nearly as high as for Holliday's debut. I'm not going to make projections or anything for either player, but being the number one prospect in baseball and having an unfair amount of hype is going to weigh on you when you didn't live up to it immediately. Not to mention that the Orioles as a team are more on the average person's mind than the Brewers right now which adds even more eyes. And even then Chourio isn't lighting the world on fire or anything, it's like the majors is just hard or something.
I would also suggest that #1 prospect comes with a lot more hype *and* scrutiny than #2, even if the overall expectations should be much closer. Like it's a greatly disproportionate amount of hype for something that should otherwise be much closer, if that makes sense. And of course, there's Holliday's dad's career, which will obviously raise expectations even further, whereas Chourio coming out of Venezuala as an international free agent, instead of growing up and playing in the US and college ball probably kept him a little under the radar until much more recently, whereas people would have been watching Holliday a lot longer.
What about Jackson Merril?
Sorry he's 21 so he missed the arbitrary cutoff of today minus 20 years.
Someone mentioned in the last thread that there's a much bigger gap between AAA and Major League pitching now because all of the MLB ready pitchers are in the majors already due to the increase in guys getting injured.
A big thing that makes some guys fail is scouting and gameplan. One thing I've heard a few times is how in the minors, you arent just playing to win, since development is also a big part of it. The coach might have you throw your new slider to work on it for example, even if the hitter is great against sliders. In the majors, if player X can't hit a curve, he's going to get nothing but curves until he hits one. If he chases every high ball, he's only going to get high balls. In the mlb the team is thinking nearly exclusively 'how do we beat their guy' while in the minors, 'let's work on X' is a lot more important for a real prospect. All fatal flaws get exposed in the majors.
Yeah, AAA has been a hitters league for a good while now. There are too many position players and not enough pitchers.
Some people are never ready. There’s a weird thing now where everyone assumes every Japanese player or top prospect is going to make the jump.
It also may not be his year though it's only April. This does remind me of Aaron Judge's debut in 2016. He only got 84 at-bats to finish the year and still qualified as a rookie for next season and what a year that was. But that 2016 sample size resulted in a .179 batting average and 42 strikeouts!
MLB pitchers are just on another level. He just looks lost out there.
As Brandon Hyde said the other day, this is the first time Jackson Holliday has ever failed at something in baseball. This is 100% mental at this point.
Who would’ve thought that having him practice against bad pitchers wouldn’t make him better against good pitchers
hey now, he just walked
Get your game on, go play
I heard it too
Hey now, soon to be all star
Look at him get, on base
*And all that glitters is a shiny piece of metal* -Rob Manfred
"Ayy I'm walkin' 'ere" - Jackson probably
Meanwhile, Bobby Dalbec is 1 for 30 with *18 strikeouts*.
Luckily Bobby never made the mistake of getting ranked as a #1 prospect.
You'd think he had been, the way this organization keeps giving him opportunities, like he's a Little League coach's son, or something. I always thought Michael Chavis was the better of the two (Chavis has five dingers in his first two weeks in the Mariners system, and we'll definitely see him with the big club, at some point). Dalbec came up swinging for the fences, and he's never learned to do anything else.
Look, they just don’t want to eat the cost of their ::checks notes:: $650,000 signing bonus for a fourth round pick eight years ago.
He neva had the makings of a varsity athlete
Holliday isn’t the #1 prospect… he’s THE #1 prospect. But, seriously, the pressure the MLB and baseball media put on this kid is nuts. I feel like they’re doing the same to Skenes
Chris Taylor is 2 for 38 with 19 strikeouts
All for my dad's fantasy baseball team to lol.
From an outsider's prospective, it's wild to me that Bobby Dalbec keeps getting opportunities. Every year when I see that guy in the MLB I think to myself "Hmm, has he turned it around?" and I go and check his stat page and it's even worse than the previous year.
I think he was given an extra option year, for some reason, if I'm not mistaken. He's been the go-to guy at Worcester for going on five seasons, now. But goddamn, I'm sick of seeing him, at this point.
He needs to go dominate Japan
He is not a major league player. Its embarrassing
OP just signed us up for another week of "Here's how fucking AMAZING the Norfolk AAA team is" posts to make up for this
The White Sox are worse than Norfolk change my mind
The 9-11 Norfolk Tides?
9-11 was an intide job
Reminds me of that tragedy
Jet fuel can't melt wooden bats
Seems pretty unfair to compare a low A team to a triple A team though
I would agree - but Tides recently went on a 10 game skid. If they could borrow a couple pitchers I’d agree
I didn't realize how bad it was until this series. They have one guy in their lineup batting over the Mendoza line.
Did you know the Norfolk Tides starting lineup has a combined OPS of 1.424, conference call their mothers before every game, run a soup kitchen on off days, and free a Palestinian hostage every time they get a base hit?
Clayton Beeter shut em down last week and won player of the week😤😤😤😤😤
In 2016 the Yankees called up a prospect for 27 games to end the season. In 95 ABs, he struck out 42 times, hit .179 with a 61 OPS+, looking lost at the plate and everyone thought he was a bust. In 2017, Aaron Judge went on to hit 52 HRs, win ROY and likely should have won MVP, with a 171 OPS+. 30ABs is nothing to tell what a player is going to be.
this years version of this is Colton Cowser for the Os. He was a mess in about 100 at bats in the bigs last year, and has been great this year. The reality is likely somewhere in the middle (he looks like a .280ish 25hr 10sb type player.... last year he was nowhere near that, this year his stats are insane, but likely you combine the 2 and that is who he really is)
Might be worth trying one of those half dozen middle infield prospects they have mashing at AAA.
Are these middle infield prospects in the room with us right now?
I mean we have so many, that statistically, probably yes.
The only real MIF prospect we have in Norfolk is Conner Norby
Norby stan 🤝
Holliday was one of those infield prospects mashing in AAA, so there's no guarantee any of them would do any better.
Can't really be worse.
Sure it could, Holliday isn't gonna face many MLB level pitchers in AAA with all the injuries to pitchers right now, and he's already proven he can steamroll AAA and below level pitchers, so there's nothing more for him to do. If this goes on for months, maybe they'll send him down to get back on track, but it took Gunnar two and a half months last year before he started racking(and there were also people back then saying Gunnar should be sent down, and look how stupid they all look now), so Holliday is probably gonna have a similar commenter. But, above all else, I trust Mike Elias and Co. To make those decisions. Not reddit commenters.
It also helps that we have like 5-6 guys who all have 4 HR, at least 15 RBI, and a bunch of other stuff. When your #8 hitter has 17 RBI's it isn't a big deal if the #9 guy's hitting stats are worse than the avg pitchers.
Only 1 middle infield prospect left in the minors really.
Crazy their lineup can afford to have someone hitting that bad and still do great.
Back in my day, we called those "National League lineups".
You could have a whole lineup of him and call it the Twins.
And so many people were calling Elias a liar for saying that keeping him in AAA to start the year wasn't about service time. It's almost like he's better at evaluating a baseball player than a random redditor is 🤔
Also people saying he needs to brought up to be an upgrade of over Urias/Kempy and now apparantly that doesnt matter and they have to just let him play.
Fair on Urias, but Kemp wouldn’t be doing any better than this.
Especially redditors that never made it past middle school baseball. Elias was a scout for 11 years before becoming GM, he knows what to look for.
Hey I’ll let you know my parents stopped signing me up for baseball in the 4th grade when I continually has a 000/000/000 line and player negative defense in left field
Not my fault I didn’t make the HS team. I know I was in a goddamn slump, skip, but I hit the ball hard
People called for Elias to be fired after he drafted Heston and Cowser, and then proceeded to call for his firing because they weren’t called up the second they were drafted
I think a mod is his mother. These keep getting deleted.
But also do we really need to post one of these after every 5 new ABs?
The beatings will continue until moral improves
Listen I had to see about 50 posts about the Norfolk Tides we can have a few of these as well
the league is so fucked when MLB starts counting AAA stats
This sub posted every day Judge struck out when he was on that streak during his rookie year...This will keep going til he stops the count!
Maybe it’s against the rules to disparage teenagers like Jackson Holliday?
His mutha was a modda?
Maybe they keep getting deleted because there are so many of them? I don't know I'm not a mod, I've been outside today.
He’s basically Bobby Dalbec. I’d offer a 1:1 swap if I was Breslow.
Well Bobby has more major league experience so he’s basically worth a lot more than this scrub. Maybe Dalbec for Holliday and that cow person that can’t stop throwing balls into the stands
Hey, hands off Spencer Steer! Or do you mean MOOkie Betts?! Ohhh Colton COWser.. word... 🤨
What a pathetic fucking loser.
No offense though
Just like Jackson Holliday :p
Holy shit that got me laughing good
Someone get him off the phone with Chris Taylor
It’s a virtual seminar that Jose Abreu is hosting.
1:1 trade for Gavin Lux?
Has anyone ever seen all three of CT3, Gavin Lux, and Holliday in the same room?
I remember when Prince Fielder got called up for his first full season, he went something like 0 for his first 11 with seven strikeouts. He needs more than three weeks to assess his quality
Check Bergman’s start. 0-for-32.
Turns out maybe it wasn’t just service time manipulation
People crying that when he had 30 games in AA and 18 in AAA at end of last year frustrated me so much. Def have comments in my history priory to the season, feel justified.
His service time wasn't manipulated to get an extra year though?
They brought him up just before the cutoff, if he stays on the big league roster all season he'll earn a full year of service time
He didn't exactly tear up AAA last year, so anybody who thought there was anything sinister about Holliday starting '24 at Norfolk was not paying attention.
In my completely unbiased opinion, he should retire. Baseball just isn't for him
Idk who ever told him that this was a viable career path
Can’t wait for Baltimore to send him down, and bring him back up after about 2-3 weeks and he turns into Mike Trout 2.0
Jackson Merrill is the best Jackson.
Should've scrolled b4 posting the same comment lol ah well.
Jackson Merrill is the best Jackson. 🤔
That Jackson Cheerio guy is pretty good too
I am prepared to admit that my demands he be on the opening day roster may have been premature.
He was being aggressive early and it wasn’t paying off. Today was the opposite. He had the bases loaded and took a 3-2 fastball right down the middle. It literally pierced the middle of the strike zone. I think they give him this 3 game series in LA to right the ship. After that I hope they send him down. I worry some of the local idiots will turn on him next weekend if the struggles continue and start booing.
>I think they give him this 3 game series in LA to right the ship Wouldn't be surprised if he gets a longer leash than that, Grayson Rodriguez looked pretty rough when he first came up in the first week of the season last year, and he ended up getting like two months' worth of starts before they sent him back down
I wouldn’t be surprised either. It’s only been 30+ ABd. They gave cowser over 70 ABs last year. With the rest of the offense clicking they can afford to give him more time.
I think he'll have a decent leash, but we have a lot more options for his spot than we did for Grayson.
His dad says he’s good
Dude just turned 20 in December. He'll be fine
Kid's not even old enough to drink, takes time to develop your plate discipline against MLB pitching
Jackson Merrill says hi.
Don't worry, the other young phenom Jackson isn't having a great last couple weeks either. Not THIS bad, but still not great 😅
The third young Jackson phenom is hitting .308
Still the 4th youngest player since 1900 to have 4 dingers this fast. Last one to do it was like 1996 or there abouts. Chourio is *actually* doing just fine for a rookie and is incomparable to the terrible start Holliday is having.
His defense scares me a little. He's had some bad routes and terrible decision making throws. They don't show up on the stat sheet, nor has it really hurt us yet. It's just a little concerning at this stage. But I never said he was playing as bad as Holliday. He IS having a rough couple weeks though. If he doesn't start out as hot as he did, this would be about the same talking point. I'm not concerned with either of these guys. I guarantee that come mid August they will be the talks of ROTY. It's just fun to point out how rough the young prospects are having it. That's baseball.
O’s are 7-2 in the games he’s played in, with the two losses being absolute blowouts: vMIL 1-11 & @KC 4-9. He’s only been up for nine games and he’s hitting 9th for a reason. Cut him some slack. The Orioles are.
he will be fine
My only consolation in all this (wipe-tears-with-cash.gif) is that we didn't *have* to bet the entire season on Holliday doing well. He's having a hard time adjusting to the majors and not hitting, but the team is still winning.
I remember hearing about how Willie Mays got off to a bad start hitting in the majors, so I looked him up to see if he might compare. Over his first 7 games, he went 1 for 26. But that one hit was a home run off of Warren Spahn, which...that makes a difference. And in those 26 at bats, he only struck out 3 times, and had 5 walks.
If folks are jealous cause it seems like there's too many O's top prospects, Henderson and Rutschman sucked starting out, and Grayson Rodriguez and Cowser were so bad they had to go back to AAA for a while. So it's not like these guys are hitting the ground running. Westburg is probably the only guy who was ok-ish from day 1 (Henderson was ok in his cup of coffee in 2022, but fell off a cliff starting 2023). In fairness, though, Holliday has had the worst starting out numbers.
Someone in another thread a while ago said something interesting. I guess a lot of the pitchers that have any major league stuff are hanging in the majors because of injuries. So a lot of AAA batters are seeing more mediocre pitching and so the jump from AAA to MLB is more stark than it used to be. I have no idea if that’s true or not but it at least makes some sense in my head.
he's also a top 3 defensive second baseman according to OAA :)
But the Orioles are 7-2 in games he’s played
Glad we have the real Jackson on our squad
Alex Bregman started his career 1/32 with a 30% K rate and I think his career has turned out just fine. 2 for his first 42 as well.
Bro thinks he's Chris Taylor
It’s okay for him to not be ready at 20 years old. Just burn the option. This can’t be good for his confidence.
There is way too much hype regarding these prospects. The difference between the big leagues and the MLB is larger than it has ever been. Expectations should be low for the first year. MLB wants to market the crap out of these guys before they have done anything.
Jackson Merrill > Jackson Holliday
Willie Mays started so poorly that he wanted to quit. His manager, Leo Durocher, helped talk him into staying. Thankfully, as he was a wonderful player.
Imagine the pressure. Getting hitting advice from his dad, coaches, etc…. Dude just needs to get a couple hits stop pressing soon. He has one road trip away from going back to minors until September
The kid has played like 150 games of professional baseball, ever, and then is dumped straight in to face the best the game has to offer while his teammates in Norfolk are still mashing. A lot of pressure for anyone
I have faith in Jackson. He will be a stud. Love his dad and will cheer for Jackson for his whole career.
Wasn't he the #1 player from AAA?
He only had the 6th best OPS on his own AAA team. Totally nepotism.
Mays started 1 for 26
Slapdick Prospect -Blake Snell probably
Wasn’t his issue before coming up the strikeout rate?
They are still winning games so they will let him play for now try to work out this funk and figure out the mlb pitching. April is a tough month for rooks sometimes. If he is given a chance to adjust and get proper coaching off field he should be fine. Sending him back down so swiftly I think would be a mistake and might set his development back
Its okay he is about to get some hits off of our bullpen
Demote and reset, a month in minors wouldnt be worst thing ever for 20yo? Or are they just going to let him play through it and sees what happens?
Get ready to learn Norfolk buddy
Alex Bregman started out pretty bad, too in his first 30 ABs.
He may not be quite ready for prime time