Orioles may have made a massive mistake calling Jackson Holliday up, but twist could give them a huge W

There was an outcry when the Baltimore Orioles didn't bring Jackson Holliday along to the big league roster to start the 2024 season, even if the reasons (getting Holliday more Triple-A time to face top-tier left-handed pitchers) were reasonable. Youth in MLB is exciting, and the Orioles have been at the forefront of this new era's revolution the last several seasons. Why not keep it going?

There was some upside to keeping Holliday down a bit longer, in particular to possibly try to manipulate his service time. Teams can call up players later in a season and retain the full first year of their contract, protecting a year of precious service time. That's good for the team, as it gets them control of the player on their rookie deal for longer.

But the Orioles now risk burning that full season with Holliday since they've called him up before the deadline to count toward a full season or not. So it begs the question, why not just call him up to start the year if they were going to burn a season anyway?

Orioles could lose a year of control with Jackson Holliday

Looking at the situation holistically, the O's might as well have called Holliday up to start the year and sent him down immediately to continue getting a few more minor league reps. In form, that's kind of what they did. With the Orioles having made this call-up so early in the year, it essentially brings Holliday up for the start of the year, sans the fanfare teams were looking for in Opening Weekend.

Maybe that actually works out better. Opening Day can be a distraction because of the theatrics. Baltimore, this way, let Holliday continue to focus solely on baseball for an extra week or two and got him back up to the majors as the season got underway.

But because they've done this so early, they lose that year of control. That's the downside, but that was the same downside that existed a few weeks ago, too.

Orioles can get some extra youth infusion if Holliday wins rookie award

If a rookie prospect is on the roster by a specified deadline and he wins Rookie of the Year, the team is awarded an additional first-round draft pick.

April 10 is the deadline for this one, as pointed out by Joe Doyle. And, of course, that's the day Holliday joins the Orioles. They now are eligible for that PPI award.

Now that they've burned the year of service time, Baltimore has every incentive to push Holliday to perform at a high level and win the Rookie of the Year award. If they can get an extra first-round draft pick to fortify their farm system once more, it might just be worth it.

Plus, if Holliday is helping the Orioles win games and compete at the top of the AL East, no one will remember that lost year of service time.