MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis believes Orioles infield prospect Jackson Holliday is the top prospect in baseball and doesn’t think it’s unreasonable for the No. 1 overall pick from the 2022 MLB Draft to reach the major leagues at some point in 2024.
MLB Pipeline recently released an updated top-100 prospect list, with Holliday slotting in at No. 3 behind Cardinals corner prospect Jordan Walker and Brewers outfield prospect Jackson Chourio. But Callis voted for Holliday as the top prospect, pointing to the maturity of his game at such a young age.
Holliday, 19, has already played at three levels — the Florida Complex League, Low-A Delmarva and High-A Aberdeen — since being drafted last summer. This year, the 6-foot, 185-pound infielder is hitting .394/.513/.701 with 22 extra-base hits between the Shorebirds and IronBirds entering play May 23. He has played mostly shortstop but has seen some time at second base as well.
Double-A Bowie is up next, likely at some point this year — a rapid ascent for a player drafted out of high school last July.
“We’re like five weeks into the minor league season right now. They could give him a little more time, but if he keeps doing this for another month, you kind of have to put him in Double-A,” Callis said on Glenn Clark Radio May 19. “If he’s not getting challenged, you need to challenge him. I think he’s going to be in Double-A by the end of the season.”
Fans can even start dreaming about a major league lineup that includes Holliday by 2024 — not a ridiculous thought, according to Callis.
“The guys that are these really, really special players — and Jackson Holliday looks like he’s going to be a really, really special player — you can sit there and try to inject reason into projecting when they’re going to get to the big leagues,” Callis said. “You can have a plan. I think realistically the plan would’ve been, ‘OK, he played a little bit last year, a couple years in the minors, at some point in ’25.’ But when guys are this good, you can just throw the ETA out. They tell you when they’re ready.”
Holliday comes from a baseball family — his father Matt was a seven-time All-Star and his brother Ethan is a top prospect in the 2025 draft — but he wasn’t necessarily always predestined for stardom. Holliday was generally seen as a second-round pick heading into his senior year at Stillwater High School in Oklahoma after an underwhelming showing on the showcase circuit the previous summer, Callis explained.
But it was clear that Holliday had evolved into a top-of-the-draft talent shortly after his senior season began last spring, according to Callis, who said Holliday had gotten “better in every phase of the game, and he was already pretty good.”
That has carried into his first full pro season. Most impressive might be the fact that Holliday has walked 31 times and struck out just 27 times.
“The thing that I think jumps out the most, if you had to pick one thing, is how calm and composed he is at the plate,” Callis said.
Callis recalled that he was asked prior to the 2023 season about who would be the top prospect in baseball after the completion of the campaign. The analyst thought Holliday was the answer, and a lot more observers are coming around to that opinion.
“You can raise my hyperbole if you want,” Callis said. “I don’t know how much more we can gush about this guy.”
See Also: Pipeline Primer: Orioles Prospect Jackson Holliday
For more from Callis, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Patrick Cavey