This is supposed to be my Orioles season preview column. As I thought it through a few days ago, I intended for it to be somewhat of an essay about where the team stands, what the reasonable expectations are for the year, what needs to go right and what could go wrong.
It will still be about those things I guess but there will be a good bit of Jackson Holliday mixed in. The Holliday decision appears to be a microcosm of some of the bigger-picture questions facing the franchise.
As you may have read a couple of weeks ago, I was really certain that Holliday was going to make the team. So I have to start, much like last week’s Maryland basketball column, by acknowledging that I was wrong. I don’t think my reasoning was wrong. The ultimate result just ended up being wrong. And because of the reasoning, I think the decision to leave Holliday off the Opening Day roster was also wrong.
For the loudmouths on social media, the answer is “no.” As in “no, I don’t think I know better about baseball than Mike Elias.” But Elias, wise as he seems, hasn’t gotten everything right, either. (Although he’s gotten a lot right!) The trade for Jack Flaherty last year wasn’t just bad, it was disastrous. Which doesn’t mean Elias’ reasoning was wrong. He just ended up getting the wrong result. That happens!
The best argument for Holliday being left off the Opening Day roster is that it “probably doesn’t matter that much if he’s not here for a few weeks.” I assume the people making that argument haven’t thought through the ramifications of MLB’s Prospect Performance Incentive program. If they had, they’d probably have a better understanding of why the other top prospects who are “close” around baseball, like the Padres’ Jackson Merrill (Severna Park), the Rangers’ Wyatt Langford, the Tigers’ Colt Keith and the Brewers’ Jackson Chourio are all on their teams’ respective Opening Day rosters.
It’s also why I’m skeptical of the “service time manipulation” argument being made by some analysts (and to be fair, denied by Elias). Years ago, we would have known that was the answer. But today, it’s much more difficult to manipulate service time the same way. For the Orioles to be certain that they could gain an extra year of control, they would have to further manipulate Holliday whenever he does come up to make sure he doesn’t finish in the top two of the American League Rookie of the Year voting. For what it’s worth, SuperBook still sees Holliday as the favorite to win the award despite the fact that he won’t even be on the team to start the season!
So if the Orioles’ decision is really about service time manipulation, how far are they willing to go to manipulate this further? Are they willing to keep Holliday down until July to make sure he can’t have that type of season? Are they willing to bench him in the midst of a playoff race if he gets off to a monstrous start when he arrives?
And if he DOES win Rookie of the Year, they won’t just miss out on the extra year of service time, they’ll also miss out on the top-35 draft pick they would have received by having him here on Opening Day. If you believe they’re prioritizing the future over the present day, you’d think they’d probably want that type of pick!
To be fair, the Orioles can still qualify for PPI if Holliday arrives in the first two weeks of the season. So maybe it’s a really short stint in Norfolk to let him play second base every day for a week? That seems unlikely but makes a bit more sense.
Or perhaps we should just take Elias at his word and believe that the decision is really only about baseball and that Holliday just isn’t close enough to being ready to factor in the PPI stuff. Elias pointed out Holliday’s struggles against lefties in spring training (2-for-14, nine strikeouts and, yeah, one grand slam, too). That’s fair! Will it be solved with a stint in the minors? He hit .296 against lefties in the minors last year!
The other argument is that he’s still adjusting to second base. That’s fair, too! But again, with the risk of potentially losing a top-35 pick, the Orioles will choose to either play Jordan Westburg at second and Ramón Urías at third OR some combination of Urias and Jorge Mateo at second. The first option means Westburg can’t continue adjusting to third, where we assume he’ll be playing once Holliday arrives. And Urías, despite his knack for “playing the right way,” is an objectively bad defensive player.
Is the trade-off of potentially losing a top-35 pick really worth those options instead of allowing Holliday to continue to learn on the job?
Elias apparently thinks so. And while I’m obsessed with the decision, I doubt it will end up being the difference in whether the Orioles win the World Series this year. But the start of the baseball season comes in the midst of a massive change season for the club. I’ve referenced it in this space and via Glenn Clark Radio quite a bit. The hopes of a deep playoff push are the biggest storyline entering the season. But the future of the club is almost as big!
The passing of owner Peter Angelos represents that season of change. We don’t yet know what David Rubenstein’s stewardship of the franchise will look like. There is hope that it will involve a greater financial investment than what we’ve seen from the Angelos family in the last two and a half decades.
But that doesn’t mean that extensions for Adley Rutschman (just a year away from arbitration and having already received a solid signing bonus), Gunnar Henderson and Holliday (both Scott Boras clients) are in the works. If not, this core group would have four years together before the first (Rutschman) becomes a free agent.
It felt like the Orioles were acknowledging the seriousness of the moment when they acquired Corbin Burnes despite his pending free agency. It felt like a tacit acknowledgement that the World Series window was open and “the time is now.” It’s a bit odd that decision wasn’t followed up by any further bolstering of the pitching, although if Kyle Bradish really can avoid surgery perhaps they’ll have enough.
Perhaps the best way to say it is that the window IS open … but it’s now necessarily “all-in” for this year. After all, we’re still talking about a four-year window with all three. But other questions will come up within those four years. A group of veterans will all become free agents in the next two years. Decisions will have to be made about their futures, measured against prospects who appear ready.
It could be argued that Connor Norby being left off the Orioles’ roster again (particularly given Holliday not being included) is more perplexing than the Holliday decision alone. If Holliday isn’t ready to play second base, fine. But where is the argument that Norby (who will turn 24 in June) isn’t ready both offensively and defensively? And could showcasing him in the bigs until Holliday is ready help increase his (or perhaps Westburg’s) trade value?
Maybe none of the “window” conversation even matters because we’re ultimately going to learn that Rubenstein is so hell-bent on winning a World Series because he’s taking over at an older age that he intends to spend the money necessary to either convince the young players to sign extensions or replace them with more-than-adequate free agents when necessary.
It’s all part of the “season of change.”
It’s a strange feeling. I’m really excited about these Orioles. I think they’re going to be very good. I’m worried about the bullpen. But I’m really excited about this team and I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll bring to the table.
I’m also really interested in learning more about the overall direction of the club in the coming years, and I hope that comes into greater focus this season as well.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles