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

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

Holliday will be back at some point, but it remains to be seen when. The Orioles don't need him right now as their team is fully capable of making a deep run without him, but he is simply too talented to stay away from the majors once he is ready to make his return. The Orioles will make sure to be as patient as possible to ensure that when Holliday returns, the team doesn't have to fire him.

Holliday is far from the only high-end prospect in the Baltimore system. He's the best, 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 marquee prospects on the cusp of being MLB ready. Will Holliday's struggles have an impact when these prospects, especially Samuel Basallo, get the call?

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

He may only be 19 years old, but the sweet-swinging left-handed hitter is having a breakout year for Double-A Bowie, slashing .293/.342/.483 with 10 homers and 32 RBIs in 53 matches. His stock rose dramatically when he crossed three levels last season and it has only increased with his strong start to the season. The fact that he did well in Double-A makes Orioles fans think of Basallo in an Orioles uniform, but again, is that realistic?

Basallo is a catcher, and Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman happens to be one of the best, if not the best, in the sport. He can also play first base, but the Orioles are pretty well established there with players like Ryan Mountcastle and Ryan O'Hearn. These players may not have Basallo's ceiling, but they are currently very good MLB hitters. Basallo could DH but that's where O'Hearn plays against righties and where Rutschman is when he's not catching.

Not only do the Orioles need to promote Basallo even if he was ready, but they would call him very quickly, much like they did with Holliday. The Orioles saw Holliday, 20, play a total of 18 games in Triple-A during his minor league career before earning the promotion. Basallo has even less experience than Holliday at this level, totaling zero games played in Triple-A.

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