For much of this MLB Draft season, high school shortstop Ethan Holliday — yes, the son of former MLB slugger Matt and the younger brother of current Baltimore Orioles infielder Jackson — has been considered a frontrunner to go No. 1 overall to the Washington Nationals. It's not hard to see why: At 6-foot-4 and with effortless power, he more closely resembles his dad than his big brother, and potential 30-homer bats on the left side of the infield don't come around very often.
But if the draft has taught us anything, especially in recent years, it's that there's no such thing as a sure thing. And while Holliday has earned raves from evaluators for years now (even when Jackson went No. 1 overall in 2022, the buzz was that his younger brother was even better), there's still a real possibility that he falls at least a little bit. And if he does, it could have a dramatic impact on the shape of his career.
The latest mock draft from ESPN's Kiley McDaniel makes that all too clear. Rather than Holliday, McDaniel has the Nationals taking star LSU lefty Kade Anderson with the first pick; it's hard to find fault with taking the best college lefty in the country, after all, especially one who's on the heater Anderson is on right now. And if that does in fact come to pass, Holliday could drop: The Los Angeles Angels at No. 2 love going the cheap route with quick-moving college talent, and the Seattle Mariners at No. 3 seem focused on adding a pitcher.
All of which means that there's a strong chance Holliday winds up with ... the Colorado Rockies at No. 4. Ouch.
"This is one of the most well-known connections in the draft," McDaniel writes, "and Holliday is likely to go fourth if he doesn't go first."
It's not hard to see why the Rockies would jump at the chance to draft Holliday if he does in fact fall to them. Colorado needs as much talent as it can get its hands on, regardless of position, and it doesn't hurt that Matt blossomed into a three-time All-Star with the team after being taken in the seventh round of the 1998 draft.
Unfortunately, it's also not hard to see why Holliday would dread this scenario actually coming to pass.
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Rockies would be just about the worst-case MLB Draft scenario for Ethan Holliday
It's not just that the Rockies are off to a historically awful pace in 2025, entering play on Wednesday at 16-57. It's not even that Colorado hasn't made a playoff appearance since 2018. Bad and rebuilding teams are obviously no strangers to the top of the draft, and that's part of the burden that comes with the multimillion-dollar bonuses that top picks receive.
What has to be really concerning for Holliday (and his family) is that this organization seems to be where young talent goes to die. Just ask last year's first-round pick, Charlie Condon: Considered a can't-miss hitter out of Georgia, Condon went third overall to the Rockies in 2024 ... and promptly slumped through his first taste of pro ball before going down with a wrist injury this past March.
Condon has swung a better bat since his return to the lineup, but he's still at High-A, and we won't know what sort of career he'll ultimately have until we see him against more age-appropriate pitching. What we do know, though, is that this team's track record stinks: Outside of catcher Hunter Goodman and maybe shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, you'd be hard-pressed to find a homegrown, big-league starter that has come out of Colorado in recent years. And with Condon the lone representative on MLB Pipeline's latest top-100 list, things don't appear to be getting better any time soon.
Holliday heading back to where his dad's career began would be a great story, no doubt. But the Rockies are a seriously broken franchise, one with an owner in Dick Monfort who's asleep at the wheel. If Holliday wants to actually get the most out of his game, he'd be better off literally anywhere else.