Stats -- WTM -- Minor League Splits

Holt was the Pirates' ninth round pick in 2009 out of Rice, and he immediately went to State College and made a nice impression there, hitting .299/.361/.449 with six homers in 66 games. He played second base at Rice, but the Pirates moved him back to short with the Spikes. He really took off in August after a slow June and so he's another 2009 draftee to watch in 2010, but it should be noted that State College's ballpark is very friendly to lefties and Holt had a .931/.694 home/away OPS split.

July 2010 Update: Holt got off to a great start with Bradenton (.351/.410/.438), but again had a huge home/away split (.986 OPS at home, .671 away). That's concerning as Tim at BuccoFans showed earlier this year that McKechnie was playing as one of the friendliest hitter's parks in the FSL in the early going this year (I don't know how that's changed since, though). In any case, that big split along with his big home/away split from last year was one of those things that made me cautiously optimistic about Holt, meaning that I wanted to see him play more. Which we can't do know that he's out for the season with a knee injury. I'm slotting him right behind D'Arnaud for now since they're similar players (college shortstops with impressive debut seasons in the system), but his ranking is pretty volatile based on how he hits as he raises and how he comes back from the knee injury.