SEATTLE — Even here, surrounded by dozens of peers with unthinkably recent birth years, Baltimore Orioles prospect Jackson Holliday looks young. Even here, where he is just one of many recent first-round draft picks and where precocious talent is a prerequisite, Holliday is different.
But no one seems to belong here — in the home clubhouse at T-Mobile Park, taking batting practice on a major league field, in front of cameras and microphones and posing for pictures — quite as he does.
“I know everybody says he looks young, but you hang out with him, man, he’s a really mature guy in the clubhouse,” said Heston Kjerstad, a fellow Orioles prospect and a Futures Game teammate Saturday. “If you didn’t know how old he was, didn’t base it off how he looks, you would think he was much older. He acts like he’s been around awhile.”
Even in rooms such as these — or in an organization such as the Orioles’, which is dripping with so many elite prospects that it hardly has room for them all — Holliday stands out. His first full professional season has been an unmitigated success. He blasted his way through 14 games in the low Class A Carolina League before being promoted to high Class A Aberdeen, then kept blasting on that level, too. He arrived here hitting .314 with a .940 OPS in 57 games there; that’s the third-highest OPS in the South Atlantic League. And he admits, matter-of-factly, that he isn’t surprised by his numbers.
“That was my goal,” he said. “Obviously I expect myself to do well.”
He is forcing everyone around him to expect that, too.
By the time he took his second round of batting practice Saturday, stadium workers in the tunnel beyond the right-center field wall were keeping an eye on every sweet left-handed swing. They had learned quickly — and once the hard way — that every Holliday swing was likely to send a line drive their way. Other hitters didn’t threaten them as often.
But even as Holliday inflates expectations, he does not seem bothered by them. As the son of a seven-time MLB all-star and the grandson of a longtime college pitching coach, he understands this world better than most teenagers. He was the only player in the Futures Game whose father ambled down to the field in a Boras Corp. pullover, shook hands with Ken Griffey Jr. and caught up with old friends made over the course of 15 major league seasons. Jackson got to choose his number for the Futures Game, and he chose 7, which Matt Holliday wore during most of his years with the St. Louis Cardinals.
He learned plenty from his father’s time in this world. Nothing — not the grueling schedule, not the attention, not the failure — feels new.
“Obviously, there’s a game every single day, so being able to learn quickly is very helpful,” he said. “It’s very helpful to be able to spend so much time in a clubhouse as a little kid, see the clubhouse camaraderie. … How my dad handled failure, I feel like he was very good at that. He never brought it home, kept everything at the field. So I definitely learned from him.”
It was polite of him to mention failure, but Holliday has not experienced much of it since the Orioles drafted him. Baltimore prospects, in general, have not been prone to failure lately. The former centerpiece of their minor league system, catcher Adley Rutschman, became the centerpiece of their major league roster the moment the Orioles called him up last season. He is slated to compete in the Home Run Derby here Monday. Gunnar Henderson, a highly touted infielder like Holliday, has settled in as a major league regular after a rough start to 2023. Jordan Westburg just graduated to the majors. Kjerstad, who was the second pick in the 2020 draft and is hitting .323 with a 1.016 OPS in 25 games at Class AAA Norfolk, is not far behind.
“I never thought I would lean on someone younger like that. But he’s a guy, after being around him, I’ll ask him hitting stuff now and then,” Kjerstad said. “Even though he’s so young, he knows the game so well.”
Henderson and Westburg play shortstop, just like Holliday. Eventually, the Orioles may find themselves with too many infield prospects for too few major league spots and might send some of them elsewhere to help their roster take the next step. But a team makes room for a talent such as Holliday. Even in that group of Orioles prospects with talent beyond their years, even on a Futures Game roster loaded with players around whom franchises are planning, Holliday seems like something different.