Baltimore Orioles prospect Jackson Holliday is yet to encounter a real challenge in his professional career.
The O’s invited him to camp this year, and he proceeded to hit .311/.354/.600 with two homers and two stolen bases.
Clearly, he is ready to be tested in MLB.
The O’s, however, opted to send him to the minor leagues to continue his development even though there isn’t much development left to do.
“The #Orioles have reassigned Jackson Holliday to Minor League camp,” reporter Sam Dykstra tweeted.
The #Orioles have reassigned Jackson Holliday to Minor League camp.
— Sam Dykstra (@SamDykstraMiLB) March 22, 2024
Two things might be happening here.
One, the Orioles have their infielder starters firmly entrenched, and they prefer to have Holliday playing every day in Triple-A rather than being a reserve in MLB.
And two, and the most obvious one, they want to gain an extra year of team control on Holliday by keeping him down for a few weeks and preventing him from getting “Super Two” status.
Either way, fans won’t be able to enjoy one of the most exciting prospects in the game because the Orioles want to gain an extra year of his services.
Every team does this, but it doesn’t cease to be frustrating.
In any case, Holliday deserves to play every day and if Baltimore can’t afford to give him that kind of playing time in the majors, perhaps it’s for the best that he goes to Norfolk to open the season.
We will see him in the bigs sooner than later.
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