When a player is selected first overall in the MLB Draft, expectations are not just high; they are almost impossible to satisfy.
That is the reality Jackson Holliday has lived with since the Baltimore Orioles made him the No. 1 overall pick in 2022. He was not simply viewed as another elite prospect.
He was billed as the next franchise cornerstone, the next face of the organization and the next homegrown superstar to join Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman in leading Baltimore into its next championship window.
Now, at just 22 years old, the conversation around Holliday has begun to shift.
Instead of asking when he will become a star, some Oriole fans have started asking a different question:
“When is it time to have a conversation about Jackson Holliday?”
It is a fair question. However, it is probably not the conversation many people think it is.
Being the first overall pick comes with a different level of scrutiny. Fans expect immediate stardom. Every slump becomes a story, every strikeout gets dissected and every error is magnified.
For Holliday, that microscope has been even stronger because of the prospect pedigree. He was not solely baseball’s top prospect, but many evaluators considered him one of the best prospects to come through the minor leagues in years.
When you carry that kind of hype, “solid” is not enough. People expect spectacular.
Through parts of three major-league seasons, Holliday simply has not reached that level. Entering this weekend, he is a career .228 hitter with a .665 OPS, numbers that fall well short of what Oriole fans envisioned when he arrived in Charm City.
Here is what often gets lost in the discussion. Jackson Holliday is 22 years old. Twenty-two.
Many of baseball’s current stars were still playing in Double-A or Triple-A at that age. Instead, Holliday has over 900 big-league at-bats under his belt while learning against the best pitchers in the world.
Has it been pretty? No. Has it been disappointing relative to expectations? Absolutely.
But disappointment is not the same thing as failure. Development is not always linear.
Not every superstar arrives and immediately becomes an MVP candidate. Baseball history is filled with players who needed several years before everything clicked, such as Jeff Kent, David Ortiz and even Orioles legend Brooks Robinson.
Let’s compare Holliday and Robinson through their age 22 seasons.
As you can see, Holliday leads the National Baseball Hall of Famer in almost every statistical category.
Holliday has also missed the start of the 2026 season after undergoing hamate surgery in his right wrist, delaying what was supposed to be another important developmental season. Since returning, he has dealt with additional setbacks, including groin tightness that forced him to miss time again.
Those are not excuses. They are part of the evaluation. Young hitters rely on repetition, and losing months to injury makes it significantly harder to establish rhythm and make adjustments at the highest level.
The conversation should not be about whether Jackson Holliday is a bust. It should be about patience versus expectations.
If Holliday is still producing these kinds of numbers when he is 25 or 26 years old, then the questions become much louder.
But at 22? He is still younger than many of the prospects currently dominating Triple-A.
It is OK to acknowledge that he has not met expectations. It is OK to want more. But it is also OK to remember that baseball has a way of humbling those who rush to judgment.
Orioles fans have every reason to expect more from Jackson Holliday. Just do not confuse a slow start with a finished story.
What are your thoughts on Jackson Holliday? Let us know in the comments below! Make sure to follow The Baltimore Battery on Facebook, X, Bluesky and TikTok, and use the hashtag #baltimorebattery when sharing our content!
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