Minor League Weekly Roundup - 4/15/24

News, notes, and highlights from the past week in minor league baseball

Jackson Holliday gets called up

After 10 games, the Orioles decided that Jackson Holliday’s defense improved enough to warrant a promotion to the big leagues. Odd timing aside, Holliday was mashing in Triple-A to the tune of a .333 batting average and two homers in those 10 games. Holliday has struggled out of the gate though, striking out nine times in 15 plate appearances, and only one hit. A small sample like this is not a reason to be concerned though, and I expect he will still be in Rookie of the Year contention by the end of the season.

Paul Skenes mows down Triple-A hitting once again

Skenes had another excellent start last week, pitching three and a third innings, striking out eight while walking just one, and allowing a season high three hits. This is an obvious case of service time manipulation, in my opinion, but something else that doesn’t make sense to me is that he hasn’t been building up a starter’s workload while in Triple-A so far. For someone like Skenes, who had a major velo spike paired with a longer season last year, I think it does make sense to be cautious, but at the same time, it’s unclear what the end goal is here. Is he just going to be throwing three innings in his first major league start? The Pirates have roughly a 31% chance of making the playoff this year per FanGraphs, so maybe the plan is to limit innings now to preserve his innings in case they make it to the postseason. Skenes isn’t really facing adversity in Triple-A right now and he’s clearly ready for the big leagues. Regardless, this was another great start, and I would imagine a promotion is just around the corner.

Brock Wilken gets hurt