Colorado Rockies and Greg Holland “talking” about a minor league deal

According to our sources, former Colorado Rockies closer Greg Holland, who was just designated for assignment by the St. Louis Cardinals earlier this week, is “talking” with the Colorado Rockies about signing a minor league deal.

In some breaking news on this Sunday night, sources tell Rox Pile that the Rockies “are talking to” former Rockies closer Greg Holland on a possible minor league deal. Sources also say that the Rockies “are the only team he’d take a minor league deal from.”

Holland was designated by the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday after a rocky first half with them. He went 0-2 with a 7.92 ERA in 32 games. His FIP was much better (4.57) but he was still a shell of what he was in 2017 with the Rockies. Part of that is due to his high walk rate (7.9 per nine innings) and high hits allowed rate (12.2 per nine innings). This gave Holland a staggering 2.24 WHIP on the season.

Last season for the Rockies, he led the National League in saves (41) and games finished (58). He was an All-Star with an ERA of 3.61 and a FIP of 3.72.

As you can see by his stats month by month last year, though, if it was not for his month of August, his stats would have looked even better.

In fact, if you take a look at the second table that we have below, Holland did not have a month with an ERA above 2.25 with the exception of August, when his ERA was 13.50. In fact, his ERA after his outing on August 4 was 1.56.

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Final Thoughts

Obviously, Holland has struggled this season but if the Rockies do come to an agreement with him, it may be a smart one. He had success last year with the Rockies and wanted to come back to Denver but the two sides just never came together on a deal. He would also be working with Steve Foster, who worked with him last year but also in Kansas City when Foster was his bullpen coach and later, a special assistant on the team.

In addition, this year, Wade Davis is on the Rockies. Holland and Davis were teammates in the Royals bullpen from 2013 through 2016 (Holland was injured in 2016, though) and they even made a World Series appearance in 2014 and won it all in 2015.

Essentially, he (and Santiago Casilla, who the Rockies signed a few days ago to a minor league deal) would be another low risk, high reward signing. If Holland does sign, send him to the minors and see how he does and if he does well, bring him to the majors. If he doesn’t pan out, you DFA/release him and you aren’t out much cash, as he would, realistically, only be owned the pro-rated minimum salary for the majors (depending on the contract). The Rockies could either trade for him during his DFA period (which is very unlikely) or wait until his DFA period is up with the Cardinals (which is through Friday).

Overall, the possibility of Holland returning to Denver might be a good thing for both sides.