The Closer Nobody is Talking About
Why Greg Holland deserves a close look from teams who need relief help.
Apart from Boston’s acquisition of Chris Sale, this year’s biggest storyline in winter meetings has been the paucity of good relief talent on the market. Because of this relative scarcity, the big three names — Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, and Mark Melancon — all have or had giant targets on their backs. Melancon was the first to sign, with the San Francisco Giants working out a 4 year, $62m deal that at the time constituted the biggest amount of money ever paid out to a reliever. Two days later, Chapman’s contract with the Yankees blew Melancon’s out of the water, with five years and $86m for the flame-throwing closer. The Melancon and Chapman contracts leave Kenley Jansen as the lone member of the triumvirate who is unsigned. Most rumors peg him as the Marlins’ top target, and he’ll likely end up with a Melancon-style contract in the four years/$50m-$70m range.
But all the talk about the reliever market got me thinking about who the best closer in baseball is, and whether or not there are any free agent/trade targets who have been forgotten in all the excitement about Chapman, Jansen, and Melancon. One current free agent stood out to me: Greg Holland, who missed the entire 2016 season after Tommy John surgery but who posted fantastic numbers for the Kansas City Royals before an injury-shortened 2015.
So how good is Holland? To answer this question, I ran a search of all relievers in the past four seasons with at least one hundred innings pitched, and compared them across various metrics. Holland’s FIP from 2013–2015 was 2.02 across 174 innings of work, a number that was fourth lowest among relievers in the game across that span, besting Dellin Betances (2.07), Andrew Miller (2.08), and some guy named Mark Melancon (2.20). Holland’s ERA from 2013 to 2016 was 1.97, a better mark than Aroldis Chapman (2.05), Andrew Miller (2.15), and Kenley Jansen (2.32). His ERA+ (park-adjusted) also beat Melancon’s (208 and 200, respectively). His opponent batting average allowed was .188 (tied for ninth best among qualified relievers), and his K/IP mark of 1.39 was sixth-best in all of baseball. Only Chapman, Miller, Betances, Jansen, and Craig Kimbrel posted higher marks in that time frame.
Holland’s best work came before 2015, when his arm troubles began. From 2011 to 2014, he posted a total 9.9 Pitching WAR, for an average of just under 2.5 per season. In 2013 and 2014, he finished ninth in Cy Young voting, just behind Wade Davis (the Cubs’ newest reliever) in 2014.
So why aren’t teams more interested? Although Holland put up incredible numbers from 2011 through 2014, he had a serious regression in the second half of the 2015 season as he started pitching through injury. The Washington Post had a great article last year dissecting some of the problems, and I’ve included a few of the graphics from that article here. As Holland was pitching through injury, his pitches lost enormous velocity as the season wore on:
The two GIFs below also show the remarkable decline in his velocity between a game on August 14, 2015 against the Angels and another game on September 9 against the Twins. In the first, you can see the finishing velocity on the 96-mph four-seamer that Holland throws as it crosses the plate at the batter’s knees. In the second example, the pitch doesn’t even touch 90-mph, and Holland’s follow-through almost looks like he’s just long-tossing the ball. He doesn’t come close to the ferocity of delivery that he shows in the first clip.
It was these problems, stemming from what the Royals think was a 2014 UCL tear, that ultimately led Holland to undergo Tommy John surgery late last year. But that was 14 months ago, and he’s now at the tail end of his rehabilitation window. Of course, returns after Tommy John surgeries are never a sure thing. B.J. Ryan, once the highest-paid reliever in the game after signing a 2007 five-year, $47m contract with Toronto, underwent the procedure in 2007 and never returned to form, pitching only 37 innings over the rest of his career. But there are success stories too: some of Adam Wainwright’s best work came after his 2011 surgery.
Holland held a showcase last month that 18 MLB clubs attended. His agent, the inimitable Scott Boras, insists that Holland is healthy and ready for a return to action. But the number of clubs linked to interest in Holland (beyond attending his showcase and watching him gently toss in the upper 80s) is low: I’ve seen reports of Boston, Kansas City, Washington, and the Cubbies (the last one may be overcome by events with the Uehara signing). Teams are probably scared of Holland’s low downside — the risk that he will never recover from Tommy John surgery.
But that’s kind of the point: the injury makes Holland a risky proposition for any team that is in “must-win” mode, but the uncertainty around his ability to regain form also makes him an attractively cheap target in the midst of what The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh has called “The Closer Arms Race.” Any team on a budget that is in need of relief help should think about giving Holland a close look, and would likely be able to sign him to an incentivized deal that offers more money for better performance benchmarks. He was once an elite arm who matched or approached the performances of today’s best closers. I hope someone will offer him a few dollars to see if he can do it again.
Like what you read? Didn’t like it? Let me know and follow me on Twitter!
