Jackson Holliday 2025 Fantasy Baseball Stock Watch

2025 Stats: 48 PA, .213/.229/.340, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 1 SB, 63 wRC+, -0.2 fWAR

Holliday has not gotten off to a great start in the 2025 season. His wRC+ is the same abysmal number as it was last year, albeit in a smaller sample size.

Under the hood, however, it does appear that Holliday’s approach is improving from where it was last year.

Not only is Holliday swinging and making contact more often on pitches within the zone, but he’s also laying off those outside of the strike zone at a better rate.

All of these data points show that his pitch recognition skills are improving. But, it’s still puzzling that he has walked just once (2.1% of PAs) even with these improvements.

Holliday was known throughout his time in the minor leagues for his outstanding eye at the plate. Even after he struggled in the major leagues last season, when he went down to Triple-A, Holliday walked a whopping 21.7% of the time.

We have yet to see him walk consistently as a member of the Orioles, however.

Holliday’s average exit velocity of 90.3 mph is just above average among major leaguers, which is an encouraging sign. His below-average bat speed (70.4 mph), however, has hindered his hard-hit rate. Holliday doesn’t have the raw power coming from his swing to produce top-tier exit velocities like some of the game’s best.

Overall, Holliday has shown some incremental improvements in his approach. He has yet to be rewarded for it, but in such a small sample, it seems likely that he will at least produce at a higher level than what we saw last season.

Holliday’s Fantasy Value

With it being so early in the season, it’s hard to say that Holliday’s fantasy value has changed much. While it would have been nice to see him tear it up out of the gate, the risk of Holliday continuing to struggle early on is a big reason for his discounted draft price.

On FanGraphs’ player rater, Holliday currently grades as the 37th-best second baseman in fantasy baseball (2B37). He was drafted as 2B18. There is an expected gap between the production that fantasy owners were hoping for and what they have received thus far.

An encouraging sign for Holliday is that he is in the starting lineup most games. The Orioles strongly believe that he will grow into an impact player for them, so they will let Holliday work out his struggles at the major league level.

There’s no need to worry about a loss of playing time immediately, unless he looks incredibly overmatched. If we get to that point in a larger sample size, it’s fair to say that his fantasy value has tanked pretty badly.

Holliday plays in a good lineup, so if he gets five starts per week and gets on base here and there, he should register a couple runs and RBI per week.

The Orioles also like his glove at second base. Even though defensive statistics are not a part of fantasy baseball, it will give Holliday a longer leash to figure out his offensive struggles.

If you drafted Holliday, do not panic and drop him yet in leagues of 12 teams or greater. In 8 or 10 team leagues, free agency is so deep that you may be able to painlessly cut him loose once you lose faith.

You knew that, based on his struggles last year, a slow start could be possible. But it may be beneficial to see if he can develop further as the weather warms up before making any rash decisions.

Route to Outperforming his Draft Value

It’s unlikely that Holliday contributes more than 20 home runs, at this point.

Holliday’s batting average projection from numerous outlets is around .230. Even if he ends up hitting .260, that wouldn’t exactly set him apart from the competition.

The one area where Holliday has the capability to excel in this year is stealing bases. An athletic guy, Holliday’s 28.8 ft/sec sprint speed is in the top eight percent of all MLB players.

Holliday’s dynasty owners can wait around for his hit tool to develop into that of an elite player. Redraft owners need him to start capitalizing on the one elite tool that he already has and start running wild on the basepaths.

He’s only projected to steal anywhere between nine and 12 bases on the season, according to many projection systems. However, from a pure ability standpoint, Holliday should have no issue challenging for 30 steals if the Orioles let him run more aggressively.

If Holliday could get to 30 steals, even if he ends up being a below-average hitter, that should be enough for him to outperform his initial draft value.