The transition to the major leagues has not been smooth for Orioles infielder Jackson Holliday. Baseball’s top prospect has begun his MLB career 2-for-34 with 18 strikeouts through his first 10 games.
The Orioles have had several top prospects make highly-anticipated debuts in recent years, but Holliday’s debut was particularly exciting given his rich baseball lineage as the son of Matt Holliday, a seven-time All-Star and 2011 World Series champion.
Former big leaguer and current broadcaster Ryan Spilborghs played with Matt in Colorado. The two were close, and Spilborghs watched his teammate’s baby-faced, golden-haired son grow up.
“Jackson was our kid,” Spilborghs said on Glenn Clark Radio April 12. “I probably flipped more baseballs to Jackson than I can even remember and recount.”
Those late 2000s Rockies teams were very tight-knit, Spilborghs recalled. He remembers going to the Holliday residence for barbecues after Sunday afternoon games.
Spilborghs sees a lot of similarities between the Rockies teams Matt starred on and this upstart Orioles squad. He watches the Orioles from afar as a host for SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio, an analyst for Apple TV’s “Friday Night Baseball” and a TV analyst for the Rockies.
“It reminds me a lot of this Baltimore Orioles team,” Spilborghs said. “You just have a bunch of players that are really good that were in the minor leagues together and they won together and they grew up together and they get married in the offseason and they’re at each other’s weddings.”
As a kid, Jackson spent a lot of time in clubhouses with stars such as Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Aaron Judge and Troy Tulowitzki, all of whom played alongside Matt.
But as Spilborghs points out, that baseball background doesn’t make the transition to the big leagues much easier for a young player with such enormous expectations. In a sport where everyone fails more than they succeed, no player is immune to those struggles. At just 20 years old, Jackson Holliday is the second-youngest player in the majors behind only Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio.
“It’s still your nature, especially if you’re not getting results right away, to doubt yourself,” Spilborghs said. “It’s what happens. That’s why baseball’s such a brutal sport because you can lose your confidence in a heartbeat. … He should be more [prepared] than a common 20-year-old, but it’s still up to that person, even with a great support system, to grab your breath, let it happen, not worry so much about results, and just go out there and try to play.”
Moving from his primary position adds another level of adjustment for Jackson. With Gunnar Henderson occupying shortstop, Holliday has shifted to the other side of the second base bag.
“As far as learning the position, it’s a little bit backward for a lot of infielders,” Spilborghs said. “Getting the feed from short and third, your back is kind of to the runner for a double play ball. You have a lot more time than you think unless you’re going up the middle. There are all these plays that he hasn’t quite learned yet, but he’s going to and it doesn’t mean he can’t do them.”
Holliday likely won’t be the last highly-touted Orioles prospect to get the call to Baltimore this season. Several big names such as Coby Mayo, Heston Kjerstad and Connor Norby are at Triple-A Norfolk, waiting for their opportunity.
A steady flow of high-level young talent has come through the Orioles’ system to find success at the big league level. That’s rare, Spilborghs says. He compares the Orioles to the 2006 Los Angeles Dodgers, who saw future All-Stars Matt Kemp, Russell Martin and Andre Ethier all debut in the same season.
“It’s one thing to draft a good player, because there’s 30 teams that draft good players every single year,” Spilborghs said. “It’s another thing to create that culture and environment where these players actually get better. And that’s what it looks like to me that Baltimore has created.”
Now that the modern iteration of the Orioles has seen what success looks like, the next step is to win the franchise’s first World Series since 1983. Spilborghs doesn’t believe Baltimore’s youth and relative lack of postseason experience should get in the way of that.
“You don’t have to have veteran players all the time. You don’t have to have experienced players in the World Series to win one,” Spilborghs said. “I think that what it boils down to now is making sure all the little things are done correctly — so hitting cutoff men, not taking a pitch off, and just kind of keeping the foot on the gas.”
That means the front office needs to keep the foot on the gas, too. Spilborghs believes the Orioles have been “risk-averse” in trading from their deep farm system for major league talent. They did that over the offseason by acquiring Corbin Burnes, but Spilborghs wants to see more.
“There are going to be pieces of the roster where you’re not quite as good,” Spilborghs said. “Because once you get to the postseason, it doesn’t have to be a name, but you have to fill the margins, because that’s the difference between a win and a loss at the highest of highs.”
For more from Spilborghs, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox