On April 26, 2024, Jackson Holliday was optioned back to Triple-A Norfolk after just 10 games in the big leagues. 

The No. 1 prospect in the game struggled against heaters, was punched out 18 times, and had an in-zone contact rate of just 65 percent. His return to the majors a few months later showed much more promise, and he worked his OPS back up to a .565 in a 60-game sample. 

Now, after a solid 2025, the Orioles anxiously await Holliday’s return from injury. 

In Adley Rutschman’s rookie season, he finished 12th in American League MVP voting. The 24-year-old had the benefit of more seasoning than Holliday, but his OPS still didn’t consistently surpass .700 in the bigs until career game No. 45. 

Baltimore’s All-Star caliber catcher is on the mend, too. 

Samuel Basallo will play his 45th career major league game sometime this week. He won’t turn 22 until August 13. And yet the catcher, just five days away from being the youngest player on an American League Opening Day roster, is tasked with helping pick up the pieces of an Orioles lineup derailed by injuries to key pieces like Holliday and Rutschman. 

His production, especially in the absence of his fellow catcher, will be key to Baltimore’s success. His placement in the lineup, often at cleanup, is an indicator of how the organization views his impact bat. Pete Alonso couldn’t think of a comparison for Basallo in the game. 

But patience will be key, too. It’s been a virtue before, and it will be again. 

Basallo has appeared in just 42 games  in his brief major league career, accumulating 149 at-bats and some subpar box score numbers. Even hitting .161 with a .560 OPS, there are some encouraging signs. 

The first, and most obvious, is his power. Prior to yesterday’s game, in which he hit a home run with a whopping 107.9 mph exit velocity, Basallo already ranked 26th in baseball in average exit velo, due in large part to his 89th percentile bat speed. Thus far, on average, Basallo is hitting the ball four mph faster than a season ago. 

Power has certainly never been an issue for the young catcher. He mashed 23 home runs in just 76 Triple-A games in 2023 en route to his promotion. When he makes contact, it’s usually loud. 

The contact part of that equation is still a work in progress, though there has been some improvement from his debut. Entering yesterday’s game, Basallo was swinging at two percent fewer balls out of the strike zone and three percent more pitches in the strike zone. 

Similarly to Alonso, Basallo’s aim likely won’t be to cut way down on his overall swing rate. The young catcher can do damage with pitches just about anywhere, and some swing and miss is to be expected with an aggressive approach. That’s a price you’re more than willing to pay for power production. Basallo is walking at an above-average clip, but will need to cut down on his 17.6 percent swing rate on waste pitches, those classified as very far out of the zone. 

Basallo isn’t just a power threat, either. Among players with at least 60 games played at Triple-A, the catcher’s .270 batting average ranked third on the Tides, behind only Dylan Beavers and Vimael Machín. 

More than likely, you heard most of this scouting report when Basallo got the call to the majors last August. And that’s the point: a reminder of the upside that the young catcher has, and why a 40-game sample size is far too early to worry. Even comparing Basallo to Rutschman and Holliday, who were both No. 1 prospects in baseball, is lofty. 

Gunnar Henderson, another No. 1 prospect, fired out of the gate in 2022, but still struggled to find consistency in 2023. It took until May 29 of that season for the shortstop’s batting average to consistently surpass the Mendoza Line.

About a week later, Henderson began a heater. In the span of four games that started June 9, the budding superstar collected 11 hits, three of which were home runs. They were career games 89 to 92, and he turned 22 a month later. 

Basallo is being asked to do a lot: hit cleanup, handle a pitching staff, and play more days than not. That’s a lot for any player to handle, let alone a 21-year-old. But the catcher is in those spots for a reason, was a top-10 prospect in the game for a reason, and was extended by the organization that signed him for a reason. 

With injuries piling up, it’s easy to get anxious for Basallo’s production to come immediately in the middle of the order. But patience will be rewarded when the catcher begins to fully tap into his potential.