Per Baltimore Sun reporter Jacob Calvin Murphy<\/a>, Holliday hopes to be back at the beginning of April after a brief rehab assignment. His timeline should be similar to Gunnar Henderson from last season, when the star SS missed the first two series of the season with a rib injury<\/p>\nOne area where Holliday stands to improve the most is against fastballs. Last season, he hit .220 against four seamers and .229 against all fastballs. His -8 Run Value against four seam fastballs was the worst among all qualified Orioles and put him 337th out of 355 qualified major leaguers.<\/p>\n
Holliday\u2019s struggles with velocity show in his batted ball profile, as his 50.6% ground ball rate was more than six points higher than the MLB, while his 20.2% line drive rate was nearly five points below league average. Being late on fastballs makes it harder to drive the ball, leading to weaker contact, more ground balls and lower expected averages.<\/p>\n
If the 22-year-old can get back on time against heaters, it could lead to a big jump in his offensive output. Projections are split on what to expect from Holliday in his third season.<\/p>\n
ZiPS: .247 average, .328 OBP, .404 SLG, 19 HR, 16 SB, 69 RBIsBaseball Reference: .244 average, .316 OBP, .390 SLG, 16 HR, 13 SB, 54 RBI<\/p>\n
FanGraphs\u2019 ZiPS model is much more bullish on Holliday\u2019s outlook for the 2026 season. It projects a 42-point jump in the infielder\u2019s OPS, along with career highs in HR and RBI. Baseball Reference, on the other hand, projects only a 16-point increase in his OPS while taking a step back in the HR and SB departments.<\/p>\n
The arrival of Blaze Alexander could provide the competition that gives Holliday the push he needs. Alexander figures to be the Opening Day 2b as Holliday rehabs his hand injury. Once back healthy, it may become a platooon at 2B. The second-generation MLB Holliday is a career .247 hitter against righties, but only hits .180 against southpaws.<\/p>\n
Alexander hits .269 against lefties with a .800 OPS, potentially forcing Holliday to the bench against LHPs. Losing his ABs against lefties may push Holliday to lock in a try and earn back his full-time starting role.<\/p>\n
At one point not long ago, people thought of Holliday alongside the likes of Henderson and Adley Rutschman\u2014the trio seen as the foundation of the Orioles\u2019 future success. With the additions of Peter Alonso and Taylor Ward, as well as the ascension of Samuel Basallo, Holliday has slipped down the pecking order to the ranks of role player. And yet, 2026 gives the young Holliday a chance to set his career on a trajectory in line with his considerable talents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite taking a step forward in his sophomore season, Jackson Holliday comes into the 2026 season with plenty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,72999,2538,5,4,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-635275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles-discussion","11":"tag-baltimoreorioles","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-orioles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}