The Nationals are making progress toward a minor league contract with free-agent reliever Greg Holland, Jamal Collier of MLB.com reports.
If a deal does come together, it’ll be the second straight summer in which the Nationals and Holland have struck an agreement. The two sides reached an accord last August, which came a little after two weeks under the Cardinals released him. Holland went on to throw 21 1/3 innings of near-perfect ball as a member of the Nationals, with whom he allowed two earned runs on nine hits and 10 walks with 25 strikeouts. It was especially surprising considering Holland struggled so much with the Cardinals before they released him.
Holland rebuilt his stock in Washington late last season, but he reverted to his uglier form this season after signing a $3.25MM guarantee with the Diamondbacks last winter. He notched a 4.54 ERA/4.76 FIP with 10.35 K/9 against 6.06 BB/9 in 35 2/3 innings before the D-backs released him this past weekend. Holland will now try to catch back on in Washington, whose bullpen has been atrocious throughout the season.
Ahahahaha!
I second what he said!
Again
Nats should see if they can get Mariano Rivera out of retirement.
They did draft his son (Mariano Rivera, III) a few years ago.
Holland was great for them last year. I was surprised they didn’t bring him back in FA.
You couldn’t live with your own failure where did that bring you? Back to me
The Nationals “How To Construct A Bullpen” method of operation:
If you’ve EVER thrown a major league pitch for a strike, even once, we’re interested…
Breaking: Nationals to extend Parra to a 3 year, $75 million contract as a pitcher after his stellar outing on August 4th.
When will teams learn their lessons?
Guys are floating around ML bullpens with worse stats than a 4.54 ERA/4.76 FIP.
And he was successful in DC just last season. Don’t know why Washington wouldn’t take a free roll. On a minor league contract; I don’t see any downside. If he looks like crap he never makes it to DC.
The downside is he looks ok in the minors and then he gets to DC and implodes. Two or three blown games is enough to sink the ship in the last month of the season. He has been hard to watch over the last couple of years.
That’s the downside for any reliever they have. If he blows up one time you can send him packing with nothing invested in him. The alternative is one of their AAA arms. They’ve ran through about everyone of those guys already.
True, gotta think they have better options though after all of the reliever pickups they have made. They are going to run out of space on their AAA roster soon
Except they don’t, Stan Lee. That’s been proven time and time again by having a bottom 3 bullpen in the league.
Well, I don’t think Holland is digging them out of that hole, but I guess that’s just me.
He was great for them last year after a horrible start, so why not again? Don’t think there’s a “lesson” to learn here, especially for a team without better options.
Can lightning strike twice!!??
Well, yeah, but they say “never in the same place twice…”
Fernando Rodney
Brad Boxberger
Johnny Venters
Roenis Elias
Hunter Strickland
Daniel Hudson
Greg Holland
Wow that’s a lot of bullpen arms they picked up
Washington nationals World Series champs 2019!
First they have to win a one game playoff in the wild card. They do have Scherzer though.
Would he be postseason eligible?
yes. as long as a player is in the organization as of end of day, august 31st, he’s eligible for the postseason (assuming also that the person hasn’t been suspended at any point during the season for a positive drug test)
Lust curious why it’s a minor league contract… if the Nationals drop out of the hunt, can they trade him because he was never on the Nationals 40 man roster?
I don’t think so but I’m not certain. I thought you couldn’t be traded under a minor league contract if you were DFA’d by another team this year… Unless that rule is for the team that designates the player only. I think the purpose is to keep teams from going around the change to the August waiver rules.
Hey, it worked before…