Jackson Holliday still hasn’t fixed his biggest problem in the minors

Given the success we've seen from virtually every highly-rated Baltimore Orioles prospect who's been called up to the big leagues over the past couple of years, it was natural to think that top prospect Jackson Holliday would follow the same path. That, of course, did not turn out to be the former No. 1 overall pick's experience in his first MLB foray.

In 10 games with Baltimore earlier in the year, Holliday struggled immensely to find any success with big-league pitching. He posted a measly .059/.111/.059 slash line over 36 plate appearances while striking out in half of those, fanning 18 times. He also failed to record an extra-base hit and generally made it clear that the 20-year-old needed to work out some things back in Triple-A Norfolk.

Arguably the most glaring problem we saw from Holliday against MLB pitching was his inability to make contact with elite stuff that is obviously more prevalent in the majors than in the minors. That's what led to the high whiff rate (49.2%) and high strikeout numbers that plagued him.

And unfortunately, it's remained a bit of a problem since he was optioned back to Triple-A in late April.

Jackson Holliday's biggest issue still hasn't been fixed in Triple-A

Eli Ben-Porat of Baseball America noted that Holliday has continued to struggle with "High Heat", which is defined as 95+ mph and 0.5 feet from the top of the zone. Even at the Triple-A level, the Orioles top prospect has a 40% whiff rate, which in nine percentage points higher than the average in that level of the minors.

To be abundantly clear, this is anything but uncommon. Many prospects, even some of the best in baseball and many of whom who go on to enjoy terrific careers, have to make adjustments when they see the best pitching that they've ever stared down from the batter's box in their lives. It's natural that adjustments will need to be made, especially when we're talking about a 20-year-old.

Having said that, it should absolutely be the focus for Holliday and the Orioles moving forward. The old adage goes that good things happen when you just keep putting the ball in play, and that was the issue for the young rising star in the majors earlier this season.

He's gotten on base substantially more back in the minors but his batting average and OBP have dropped noticeably over May and early June compared to what we saw at the start of the year in Norfolk. And as Ben-Porat showed, the same problems from what we saw in the bigs is definitely part of that equation.

This isn't a "all hope is lost" situation -- not even close. Holliday has the tools to be a legitimate superstar and, again, this is a kid who can't even have a legal drink yet. There is plenty of time for the right tweaks and adjustments to be made. But make no mistake, they absolutely need to be made to catch up or show more discipline against elite stuff for him to realize his potential.