Orioles shortstop Jackson Holliday, the first pick in the 2022 MLB draft, could be the best pick in the minors after the completions of Arizona’s Corbin Carroll and Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson and the recent promotion of Cincinnati’s Elly de la Cruz. It’s really up to Jackson Chourio, the midfield junior for the Holliday and Brewers, so I can say with some confidence that the best junior in baseball is Jackson.
Holliday beat Low-A Delmarva early in the season and hit even better when he first arrived at High-A Aberdeen, including a .384/.509/.628 line in May. Some regression to the mean was inevitable, and after coming on base three times in Sunday’s matinee game in Wilmington, he hits .222/.385/.319 in June. Same player, two random samples, determined by trying to track the phases of the moon. Holliday is still coming into base, still making contact in June almost as quickly as in May, having some bad luck and coming to a little softer contact.
I’ve seen 11 Holliday plate appearances this year, all since moving up to Aberdeen, and although they only included two goals and four strikeouts I’m still fully convinced of the player and particularly the momentum. His timing has only been slightly off in the last two games I’ve watched and he’s just been a little off balance, maybe he just went a hair’s breadth too far, although it’s possible it’s nothing and me looking for an explanation where there is none. He mishit a few balls but wasn’t topped, although I don’t think he saw a shot go past 94 mph. He moved the racquet around to take 93 mph from a right-hander and slammed it through the left side for a run-scoring groundball single and he lunged for a 2-0 fastball down for a hard double on the right side – center gap. His swing has enough leverage to hit 20-25 homer hits in a timely manner, while for now it might just be a lot of hard contact and doubles at around 15 homers. (He’s seven years old now, so this isn’t exactly a big prediction.)
Holliday played one game at shortstop and looked fine, then on Sunday he played third base and looked like a guy who didn’t play much third base, although he only had one miss and that was on a groundball where he not was I’m going to get the runner first anyway. I haven’t seen anything from him that would tell me he won’t be a shortstop for the next 10 years.
Chourio is the more explosive athlete and is already playing in the Double A despite being three months younger than Holliday, but I think Holliday is winning the argument over performance and current baseball skills, even considering Chourio’s youth — he’s the only teenager who spent all this year in Double A, just this month Junior Caminero from Tampa Bay joined. Holliday is a shortstop and plans to stay there; Chourio is a former shortstop turned midfielder and plans to stay there. Chourio is faster. Holliday is much more disciplined. Chourio has more power, but Holliday will have above average power over time. You can do a good thing for either of them. I will deliberately not state my point of view until the end of July, if necessary.
Other scouting notes:
• prospect of nationals Brady house Only played in one of the two games I attended, but he did me a favor and hit a homer, a line shot to the middle in Wilmington, a place where he’s generally difficult to hit, to gain power (I assume because he’s right on the line). River bank). House’s big concern as an amateur when the Nationals selected him with the ninth pick in 2021 was that he would swing and miss a lot, and that was just the price of achieving his elite exit speeds and therefore future power. So far this has not happened. There’s definitely some swing and miss here, but he’s kept it under control, at around 27 percent in High A so far, and his strikeout rate this season is something between Low-A Fredericksburg and High-A Wilmington combined more than 20 percent. I wouldn’t call him “disciplined” but his ability to get the racquet to the ball now is better than advertised. Double-A pitchers are going to be a much tougher test as he’s chasing too much anyway and can get away with it because he can hit some of those pitches, but at the next level he’ll probably have to adjust and put things out of the zone. It’s a simple, simple power, though, and because a lot of the contact he makes is difficult, he’s on average a better shot than most guys, who swing and miss at an above-average rate.
• Jeter Downs is recovering at the Blue Rocks after being put on the injured list in the Triple A on May 12 and in the two games I’ve watched he didn’t seem at all ready, sniffing in the zone at 90-92 and took a lot of calls on strikes. He is now 3-19 between the Florida Complex League and the High A, and has scored seven goals in 12 plate appearances with Wilmington. I really don’t know what’s going on – it’s not his shot speed, it looks good, but it’s like he can’t pick up the ball at all.
• Outfielders Dylan Beavers was Baltimore’s second pick of 2022 (33rd overall) and scored very well in his pro debut last summer, but for Aberdeen he only scores .231/.328/.398, far too low for a major collegiate product ( Cal). High A. He lunges terribly at the plate, goes past the front far too soon and then throws his hands on the ball for gentle contact. He always had a bit of that last part of his swing, but as recently as August he was staying strong and balanced through contact rather than leaping forward. He should be a better hitter, both in terms of average and power.
• Andry Lara has been one of the Nats’ top pitchers for a couple of years, but it was all about his potential and at this point I’m not sure he even has that. Lara was only doing 91-94 mph on his sinker Thursday, with a subpar lead and two 45s in his slider and changeup. He’s got a big, fat body that I don’t think will age well, and his low 3/4 slot allows lefties a very long shot of the ball – he has a wide platoon split with lefties who .296/.384 beat /.520 against him.
• Aberdeen started Trace Bright in the same game, and while he doesn’t have elite stuff, he showed a very good flair for utilizing what he has, enough to potentially find a way to the majors. The Auburn native, Bright, the Orioles’ fifth-round pick last year, is 91-93 mph but drives the ball well towards the zone, coupled with an 84-86 mph transition while he has a curveball from the mid-70s with 11/. 5 rest, that’s an average pitch. The Blue Rocks are certainly fed up with him at this point, as his two highest swinging strike totals of 2023 came against Wilmington on Thursday and in his first start of the season, also against Wilmington. Bright needs to throw more strikes to have a chance at the fifth starter, but with those three throws and his ability to move them, there’s enough here that I think he has some sort of MLB advantage.
(Photo by Jackson Holliday: Greg Fiume/Getty Images)