Baltimore Orioles Placing Huge Wager on Holliday for Rookie of the Year

The Baltimore Orioles are taking a gamble as they call up their former first overall selection Jackson Holliday.

Mar 11, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; Baltimore Orioles shortstop Jackson Holliday (87) looks on first / Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles made a huge move for the future of the franchise as they called up top prospect Jackson Holliday to the Majors on Tuesday night.

This could have big implications even outside of how he will impact the team with his play this season.

The Orioles will receive a first-round pick if Holliday wins the American League Rookie of the Year Award thanks to the Prospect Promotion Incentive.

The PPI allows teams to receive that first round pick if a player accrues one full year of service. That means that a player needs to be called up while still being able to spend 172 days on the active roster. It's meant to incentivize teams to call up their best players in an effort for the league to grow the game with new stars.

This makes Baltimore's decision to call him up even more important as it's a great chance to earn a first round pick.

It's a big risk though, because if he exceeds 60 days of MLB service this season, then he Holliday wouldn't be PPI eligible in 2025.

The team must believe he is truly ready to make the jump if they are taking this risk.

Holliday had a nice spring training this year, batting .311 with a .954 on-base plus slugging. He continued that success in Triple-A for a couple of weeks hitting .342 with a 1.096 OPS.

The Orioles were able to take advantage of this with Gunnar Henderson and certainly won't complain if they are able to pull it off a second time.

The biggest competition for Rookie of the Year will be Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter of the Texas Rangers. Though he is 10 games behind those two, Holliday should have more than enough time to catch up to them.

Only time will tell if the gamble is worth it.