Jackson Holliday's struggles could keep another teenager off Orioles roster this season

The Baltimore Orioles made headlines when they chose to promote the top prospect in baseball, Jackson Holliday, to the majors. Most felt as if despite his young age, the Orioles waited too long to promote him. It turns out, they didn't wait long enough. Holliday struggled mightily in the ten MLB games he played, resulting in the team sending him back down to Triple-A Norfolk.

Holliday will be back at some point, but when that is remains to be seen. The Orioles don't need him right now as their roster is fully capable of making a deep run without him, but he's simply too talented to keep out of the majors once he's ready to make his return. The Orioles will make sure to be as patient as possible to ensure that when Holliday does come back up, the team won't have to send him back down.

Holliday is far from the only high-end prospect in Baltimore's system. He's the best one, but the Orioles have four of MLB Pipeline's top 21 prospects in their system, and that list doesn't even include intriguing prospects like Connor Norby and Cade Povich who were just called up to the majors.

The O's have several impactful prospects on the cusp of being MLB-ready. Will Holliday's struggles impact when those prospects, particularly Samuel Basallo, get the call?

Orioles might not want to make same mistake with future prospects that they made with Jackson Holliday

Basallo is Baltimore's No. 2 prospect according to MLB Pipeline and the No. 13 prospect on MLB Pipeline's top 100 list. Obviously, those factors make him one of the best prospects in all of baseball.

He might be just 19 years old, but the sweet-swinging left-handed hitter is having an outstanding year for Double-A Bowie, slashing .293/.342/.483 with 10 home runs and 32 RBI in 53 games. His stock rose dramatically when he went through three levels last season and it has only gone up with his strong start to this season. The fact that he has done this well in Double-A has Orioles fans thinking about Basallo in an Orioles uniform, but again, is that realistic?

Basallo is a catcher, and Baltimore's catcher, Adley Rutschman, happens to be one of the best if not the best in the sport. He can play first base as well, but the Orioles are pretty set there with players like Ryan Mountcastle and Ryan O'Hearn. Those players might not have Basallo's ceiling, but they're very good MLB hitters right now. Basallo could DH but that's where O'Hearn plays against righties and where Rutschman is when he doesn't catch.

Not only do the Orioles not need to promote Basallo even if he might be ready, but they'd be calling him up very quickly, much like they did with Holliday. The Orioles saw Holliday, a 20-year-old, play a total of 18 games in Triple-A in his minor league career before getting the promotion. Basallo has even less experience than Holliday at that level, totaling zero games played in Triple-A.

The last thing any team wants when they promote a top prospect is to send that prospect back down because he clearly wasn't ready. It's possible that a combination of the Orioles already having a ton of MLB talent and fear that Basallo could fail like Holliday did without more experience, could prevent the 19-year-old from seeing the majors this season.