03-24-2024 MLB Preview - Flipbook - Page 9
MLB ’24
Sunday, March 24, 2024 9
SEASON PREVIEW
Holliday
from Page 8
first big league game.
McCann, one of the Orioles’ oldest players at 33, has twin 6-year-old boys who
sometimes run around the clubhouse or
take hacks in the outfield with dad. Fourteen years ago, Holliday was in the same
position, as the energetic kid and son of
seven-time All-Star Matt Holliday grew
up in big league clubhouses.
It’s no secret that at least a portion of
Holliday’s talent comes from his dad’s
genes — although his work ethic during
the past two offseasons is why he’s risen
to the top of prospect lists. But his levelheaded demeanor, coaches and teammates
say, is a credit to his experience around the
game at an early age.
“His dad was an incredible player and
still is an incredible baseball mind, so obviously he has someone very close to him
that he can always just go back to,” McCann
said. “He already has the persona to make
it happen and obviously the talent. Now it’s
just a matter of letting the chips fall where
they may.”
The elder Holliday doesn’t know what
it’s like to be a top prospect, though. He
never cracked Baseball America’s top 100
during his time in the minors before hitting
316 career home runs with the Colorado
Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals, Oakland
Athletics and New York Yankees.
For his son to learn to manage the expectations of being a No. 1 prospect, he believes
having Rutschman and Henderson as
“resources” will be beneficial, on top of his
big league upbringing.
“I think he’s ahead of the game in that
element,” Matt Holliday said. “He has a
very even-keeled personality that I think
is ideal. That’s not to say there won’t be
days that he’ll feel pressure, and there’s
going to be days where he presses a little
bit. There will be days that he feels baseball is really, really hard, because it is. But
he has the mentality and the demeanor that
will handle these outside pressures.”
In 2022, Rutschman finished second in
AL Rookie of the Year voting behind Seattle’s Julio Rodríguez, earning himself a full
year of service time. Last year, Henderson
won the award — the Orioles’ first since
right-hander Gregg Olson in 1989 — to
garner the Orioles an additional first-round
draft pick. Holliday, like Henderson was
entering 2023, is a slight betting favorite
to bring home the award, as DraftKings
lists the Orioles youngster ahead of Texas
Rangers outfielders Evan Carter and Wyatt
Langford.
However, success didn’t come imme-
The Orioles are confident Jackson Holliday, the sport’s No. 1 prospect, will be able the handle the pressure. KENNETH K. LAM/STAFF
diately for Holliday’s predecessors.
Rutschman hit just .176 without a home
run in his first 20 major league games.
Henderson, who debuted and played well
at the end of 2022, slumped to begin last
season with a .170 average over his first 100
at-bats.
Whether this spring, summer or fall,
Holliday will struggle at some point in
2024 as all big leaguers do, and how he
adjusts will ultimately determine if he can
reach his potential.
“I felt like I was trying to be a little bit
too perfect last year,” Henderson said.
“It’s easier said than done, but I’d tell him
to just be aggressive and be OK with failing. It’s very hard at the beginning because
you don’t want to mess up at all, especially
first time in the big leagues. But failure is in
baseball and you’ve just got to go out there
and accept it.
“That’s the biggest thing — having that
confidence in yourself. And your teammates can help build that confidence as
well. I know I’ll be here for that to help him
in any way he needs.”
Rutschman and Henderson aren’t the
only ones around the club who have experience with sky-high expectations. Former
Orioles pitcher Ben McDonald, now a
member of the club’s broadcast team as an
analyst, was drafted by Baltimore with the
first overall pick in the 1989 draft — the first
top selection in franchise history.
McDonald, a right-hander out of LSU,
received a groundbreaking three-year
guaranteed contract worth $950,000
— nearly quadruple the bonus given to
the previous year’s top pick — because
of his pedigree as one of the best pitching prospects in modern baseball history.
He pitched just two games in the minor
leagues before debuting in late August of
Baltimore’s “Why Not?” 1989 campaign —
the last player to be drafted first overall and
make the majors in the same season.
“It was one of the more difficult times in
my life. I honestly didn’t enjoy baseball a
whole lot because of those expectations,”
said McDonald, who had a good big league
career but wasn’t the dominant pitcher
scouts envisioned because of persistent
shoulder issues. “I tried to live up to ’em,
which was the worst thing in the world.
When you try to live up to certain expectations, you try to please others. I think that
starts a downhill spiral. There were a lot
of nights in my career when I banged my
head up against the wall wondering why I
couldn’t consistently have success at the
big league level.”
But McDonald didn’t have footsteps to
follow like Holliday does in Rutschman
and Henderson. To handle the mantle of
baseball’s top prospect, McDonald said
a player has to be mentally tough with a
certain moxy that he believes the Orioles’
trio has.
“What strikes me about these young kids
is the confidence they have,” he said. “It’s
pretty impressive. These are good guys,
good kids. They come to work every day,
they work hard. It’s not cocky; it’s confidence. They’re not a bunch of [ jerks].
They’re just good dudes.”
It’s also not skipper Brandon Hyde’s first
time managing a young star with weight
on his shoulders. Before the Orioles’ trio,
Hyde was an assistant with the Chicago
Cubs when top 100 prospects Javier Báez,
Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler, Kyle Schwarber
and Willson Contreras navigated their
early days in the big leagues.
Hyde, entering his sixth season with the
Orioles, said Holliday is a “very mature”
20-year-old. But his goal with the youngster — as it was with Henderson and
Rutschman — is to “take as much pressure
off him as possible.”
“I’ve seen No. 1 prospects come to the
big leagues before and seen the hype and
the fanfare and peoples’ expectation is that
they’re going to be superstars right away,
and that’s very, very challenging,” Hyde
said. “These guys have to worry about by
just trying to fit into the big leagues on top
of the expectations people have for ‘em. I
just try to downplay it as much as I possibly
can and try to have ‘em relax.”
That’s the same advice Rutschman has
for Holliday — to “slow down the moments
that get big.” The All-Star catcher used that
same tactic before his debut.
Before getting into his squat on a big
league field for the first time, Rutschman
took a moment and surveyed Camden
Yards to “soak it in.”
It won’t be long before Holliday is doing
the same.
Baltimore Sun reporter Matt Weyrich
contributed to this article.