Will Jackson Holliday Break Out for the Orioles in 2025?
Despite an underwhelming rookie season, there is still plenty of hope that Jackson Holliday can become an impact player in Baltimore in 2025.

Jackson Holliday is no stranger to lofty expectations.
As the son of seven-time All-Star Matt Holliday and older brother of projected first-round draft pick Ethan Holliday, the world has been waiting for Jackson to light up Major League Baseball.
He reached Triple-A Norfolk in September 2023, at 19 years old, just over a year after being selected first overall. When last season’s Spring Training concluded, the media clamored for Holliday to break camp with the Orioles.
Though he didn’t make the Opening Day roster, Holliday was quickly promoted to the major leagues on April 10. In his first stint, he went 2-for-34 (.059) with no extra-base hits, two walks, and 18 strikeouts. He was entirely overmatched.
The Orioles optioned Holliday to Triple-A on April 24, so that he could refine his approach. Holliday had only played in 18 Triple-A games prior to 2024.
When he returned to the Tides, Holliday performed well. In 73 games, he slashed .271/.431/.477 (142 wRC+), with 10 home runs, 25 doubles, and an outstanding 21.7% walk rate. Orioles President of Baseball Operations Mike Elias decided to bring him back to the major league roster on July 31.
In the first seven games after his second promotion, it looked like the breakout was happening. Holliday went 9-for-24 (.375) with four home runs and ten RBI, including this 439-foot grand slam.
Unfortunately, Holliday would homer just once over his final 145 plate appearances (PA). He did not hit any home runs in his final 132 PA.
Holliday gave us a taste of what he could become, but it’s hard to consider his rookie season anything other than a failure. His final stat line saw him hit .189/.255/.311 with five home runs, a 33.2% strikeout rate, and a 63 wRC+.
Reasons for Optimism
Holliday, 21, has been an impactful player at every stop in the minor leagues.
It cannot be overstated how great the jump is from Triple-A to MLB pitching, but Holliday was assessed by scouts as a 65-70 future value (FV) player on a scale of 20-80. He is expected to have the offensive skills to figure things out.
A good mix of hit and power ability, Holliday hit .300 or better in both Single-A and Double-A ball. He posted an average just below .270 in 91 career Triple-A games but has gotten on-base at over a .400 clip.
Let’s not forget, Holliday was not a college draftee. He posted a 142 wRC+ in Triple-A last season while being over six years younger than the average Triple-A player.
Not only has Holliday shown to be a good hitter, but he is also a good athlete. His sprint speed was in the top 5% of all major league players in 2024. Once he gets more comfortable at the plate and gets on base consistently, Holliday could be a threat to steal 30 bases.
Mechanical Adjustment
After a difficult showing at the major league level for the majority of the season, Holliday was messing around with his swing in the batting cage. Trying to resemble 2024 National League Most Valuable Player Shohei Ohtani, he altered his stride from a big leg kick to an Ohtani-esque toe-tap.
Holliday decided to try it out during games for the final week of the season since his playing time was dwindling anyway.
Once he instituted this toe-tap stride, Holliday went 5-for-10 with a double, three walks, and one strikeout. Those numbers look much more like the production that he was putting up in the minor leagues!
Jackson Holliday was "hesitant" to ditch his leg kick for a toe tap — an idea the Orioles first pitched shortly after drafting him.
— Jacob Calvin Meyer (@jcalvinmeyer) October 24, 2024
But after imitating Shohei Ohtani during BP with coach Cody Asche, Holliday made the late-season switch and it worked.
📰: https://t.co/HgxI81P4lQ pic.twitter.com/DrIG3q1Xjb
Sometimes a big leg kick can be too many moving parts for a hitter. It can throw off their timing and allow them to be more easily exploited by opposing pitchers.
Holliday may have been able to make his leg kick work in the minor leagues because of pure talent, but major league pitchers were exposing him.
By incorporating this toe-tap stride, Holliday can be shorter to the baseball. Being short to the ball can allow him to make hard contact more often, helping him gain confidence.
Once Holliday consistently succeeds against major league pitching, he could always decide to switch back to his leg kick. That leg kick may allow him to generate slightly more power, but not all hitters need a big leg kick to do so.
For now, Holliday shortening his stride seems like a great adjustment to try cutting out all of the swing-and-miss that was hampering him at the major league level.
Areas of Improvement
For Holliday to succeed at baseball’s highest level next season, he must cut down on his strikeouts.
Getting promoted to the major leagues at 20 is an enormous challenge. It would have been unreasonable to expect him to strike out at his ~20% clip in the minors upon his promotion. However, striking out 33.2% of the time is giving away too many opportunities to make something happen.
Let’s go through some numbers and compare Holliday’s swing tendencies between MLB and Triple-A in 2024:
MEtric | MLB | Triple-A |
Swing% | 45.8% | 38.4% |
Zone Swing% | 63.4% | 60.8% |
Out-of-Zone Swing% | 26.1% | 19.5% |
Contact% | 70.1% | 75.6% |
Zone COntact% | 80.8% | 81.7% |
Out-Of-Zone Contact% | 41.2% | 59.6% |
wRC+ | 63 | 142 |
What jumps out is that Holliday’s swing decisions and contact results were largely similar on pitches in the strike zone but different on those out of the zone.
This shows that his bat-to-ball skills translated to the major leagues fairly well when he decides to swing at a strike. Even though major league pitchers are the best, Holliday could get his bat to the ball when it was in the zone.
However, Holliday fell victim to over-aggression or the improved stuff of major league pitchers and chased much more in the major leagues.
When he did chase, Holliday’s skills could not bail him out like they had in Triple-A. The pitchers in the major leagues have much better offerings than he saw at the level below.
All of these chases and whiffs on would-be balls once he got to the bigs damaged his ability to make an impact. This contributed to Holliday’s increased strikeout rate and decreased walk rate from Triple-A to MLB.
Final Thoughts
If Holliday brings the toe-tap stride to 2025, that should help him improve his subpar strikeout and walk rates. By having that big leg kick, Holliday could have been committing to swing at pitches too early.
So much of his body was in motion with this leg kick. If Holliday initially identified a pitch as a fastball and wanted to swing, so much of his lower half was in motion that it could be hard to stop. That could explain the increased chase rate and decreased contact rate.
By simplifying his stride and load mechanics with a toe-tap, Holliday could have more time to identify the pitch being thrown. It would also allow him to let his natural bat-to-ball skills to take over, without those other moving parts.
In his age-21 season, Holliday probably won’t be contending for the MVP award. However, he will get to start at second base and play around many other young, impactful hitters. Holliday won’t be expected to carry this offense on his own.
What would it take for a former number-one overall pick to have a breakout season at 21? Does he have to be an All-Star?
If Holliday could hit for a wRC+ of over 100 over a full season, that seems like an improvement massive enough to consider 2025 a breakout season.
Steamer projects Holliday to slash .234/.335/.373 with a 108 wRC+ in 411 plate appearances in 2025. His impact would be greater than the average major league hitter even by batting just .234.
Imagine what that impact could be if Holliday hit .260? That would be a breakout player and an All-Star candidate.