Baltimore Orioles Standout Young Star Could Take Massive Leap This Season

The Baltimore Orioles could have the league's next superstar ready to explode this season.

Aug 31, 2024; Denver, Colorado, USA; Baltimore Orioles second base Jackson Holliday (7) at bat in the fifth inning against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Baltimore Orioles are led by what is arguably the best young core in baseball.

With a steady stable of homegrown talent, some of whom have already taken the step into superstardom and some who are well on their way, the Orioles are going to be a force to be reckoned with for a very long time if they can hold it all together.

One player who was one of the most widely hyped of the entire group hasn't achieved that yet just one season into his big league career, but that doesn't mean he won't.

In an article naming a dark horse candidate across the league who could all of the sudden become the best player in their respective division, David Adler of MLB.com listed Baltimore second baseman Jackson Holliday for the American League East.

"Holliday will have to make a huge leap to ascend to superstar status this season," Adler wrote. "But some of MLB's biggest stars have famously done exactly what he's trying to do. Trout hit .220 when he debuted, before exploding with 30 homers and 49 steals the next season. Aaron Judge hit .179 and struck out in half of his at-bats; he crushed 52 homers the next year."

It was not all pretty for Holliday in his 60-game rookie season, finishing the year with a batting average below .200 and just a .565 OPS. But there were flashes as to why he was the former top prospect in baseball, and there's certainly reason to believe he's capable of turning it around this year.

While his middle infield counterpart Gunnar Henderson burst onto the scene with a unanimous Rookie of the Year season, generally that's not the way things go in terms of player development.

Of course, Holliday would be the first to say he was disappointed with the results he had, but it would be incredibly foolish to write him off because of it.

In Holliday's last full season of minor league ball in 2023, playing in four different classifications from Low-A all the way through Triple-A, he did nothing but mash. With a .941 OPS and .323 average in 125 games, he began the 2024 season in Triple-A where he continued to rake with a .908 OPS.

There's no reason to press any sort of panic button after he didn't immediately start hitting at the Major League level.

In fact, quite the contrary.

Holliday is primed for a sophomore leap where he starts to show the kind of player he was as a prospect and seems destined to give the Orioles what would be perhaps the best middle infield in all of baseball.