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.
