Baseball's Top Overall Prospect Earns Invite to Major League ST, Fueling Thoughts He Could Make Opening Day Roster

The Baltimore Orioles have officially invited top overall prospect Jackson Holliday to major league spring training, spurring speculation that he may be able to crack the O's roster out of camp.

The Baltimore Orioles have officially invited top overall prospect Jackson Holliday to major league spring training, spurring speculation that he may be able to crack the O's roster right out of camp.

The Orioles’ non-roster spring training invitees include Jackson Holliday, Coby Mayo and fast-rising prospect Samuel Basallo pic.twitter.com/WlWMinRVY1

— Andy Kostka (@afkostka) February 6, 2024

Holliday hit .323 last season, finishing the year at Triple-A. He hit 12 home runs, drove in 75 runs and also stole 24 bases. He's just 20 years old but appears to have a solid chance to make the roster out of spring. At the end of 2023, O's upper management said they were going to give him a chance to do so. The Orioles currently have Gunnar Henderson, Tyler Nevin, Ramon Urias, Jorge Mateo and Jordan Westburg as other middle infield/third base options, so that's who Holliday is competing with.

He's the No. 1 overall prospect in all of baseball.

The following comes from his MLB.com prospect profile:

The combination of nature and nurture certainly come into play, with growing up around the game clearly helping Holliday’s overall skillset. He has an extremely advanced approach at the plate, and he showed it off by walking more than twice as much as he struck out during his debut last summer. He has a simple left-handed stroke he got back to after his swing got a little long last summer, allowing him make more hard contact than ever, with plenty of power coming organically from his swing.

With strength he added before his senior year, and with more to come, Holliday has also gotten faster and is a consistently plus runner. There’s an up arrow next to his arm strength as well and that, along with his improved quickness, means he should be able to play shortstop for a long time.

His father (Matt Holliday) played 15 years in the big leagues with the Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals, Oakland Athletics, and New York Yankees. He spent part of eight years in St. Louis, six with Colorado, one with New York and part of one with Oakland. He was a seven-time All-Star selection, received MVP votes in eight different seasons and finished fifth in the 2004 National League Rookie of the Year voting.

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