The Angels have signed right-hander Jonathan Holder to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com (hat tip to Sam Blum of The Athletic.) Holder will presumably be invited to major league Spring Training, though no official announcement on that matter has been made. He’s been assigned to the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees for the time being.
Holder, 30 in June, saw major league action in five straight seasons from 2016 to 2020, all with the Yankees. He racked up 176 2/3 innings in that time, posting a 4.38 ERA, 21.7% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate and 36.8% ground ball rate. He was non-tendered prior to 2021 and signed with the Cubs but a shoulder issue limited him to just two innings that year.
He settled on a minor league with the Cubs for 2022 but didn’t get into a game until late July. He ended up pitching 21 innings in the minors with an 8.57 ERA but better peripherals. He struck out 21.9% of batters while walking 11.4%, as a .424 batting average on balls in play and 58.3% strand rate surely made his ERA look much worse than he deserved. FIP pegged his season at 4.66, not super exciting but around half of his ERA.
The Angels have been one of the busier teams so far this offseason, signing Tyler Anderson to their rotation while trading for infielder Gio Urshela and outfielder Hunter Renfroe. They’ve also bolstered their bullpen depth with minor league deals for Jacob Webb and Chris Devenski in recent days, now adding Holder into the mix as well.
appreciate the bulk depth signings, never know what happens through 162
I was wondering why this wasn’t happening last year. I’m always a fan of the flash in the pan. Especially since Rendon is soaking up the bills
Any Yank fans have anything fruitful to say about this man? He was with you guys for a good while.
Gave me a ball at Yankee stadium. Pretty cool
Haha I’m sold. Getting a ball is always awesome. Been to lots of games and only ever got 1.
He looked good in 18 but had shoulder issues in 19 that derailed him. He continued to have injury ( more shoulder I think) issues with the Cubs. Was a legit setup man before all that. Perfect name for a reliever too.
Jose says…
Thank you for the report
His 2016 minor league season was hilariously dominant, then his stuff precipitously declined after being called up. He was serviceable for a couple of years, some stretches of dominance. Lower velo guy who relies on deception. Haven’t seen him throw for a while, but he looked cooked the last time I did, frankly.
This is a great add for LAA. The only downfall is it seems like he’s afraid to air out his arm/empty the tank.
At his best he was a solid option in a good bullpen but I think his shoulder may be shot.
Not a Yankees fan (obviously) but Holder looked like a solid bullpen piece in ’18, awful in ’19, and decent in ’20 and we haven’t seen him since so he definitely has the “mixed bag” description going for him
So far the Angels have gotten 3 or 4 veteran bullpen arms on minor league deals, it’s good to have depth.
All the minor league pitchers belong to us!!!
Dumpster diving at its finest.
KENNETH A LICHTIG
the angels traded 3 minor leaguers last week so the angels need depth in their AAA farm system but I guess a idiot like you doesn’t understand baseball management? Thanks for the trashy comment Iggy.
best team ever
They got the best player ever but I wouldn’t say that makes them the best “team” ever.
*best two players
The Angels are used to throwing big money at marginal free agents. Finally they are doing what the Dodgers have done for years with low money reclamation projects!
What marginal free agents u talking about? that hey gave big money to?
I have a wart on my ass that I call Matt Harvey.
dirkg
You got a wart on your ass?
Maybe you should stop playing with your frog it’s not healthy
Dude you haven’t met my frog. Worth it.
Harvey, Teheran, Allen, Cahill, even Syndergaard coming of TJ was a huge overpay!
The difference is that the Dodgers know how to develop them.
Nice! Rack up 3 more of these guys and that’s fine with me. I’m pretty sure that if there’s only 1 big signing left, it with be for a closer. Hopefully a SS is in the budget to, and I’ll be stoked!
The Angels need a closer at least. Maybe another starter to fill out the 5th spot and have jose saurez the 6th. Johnny Cueto, Jordan lyles, or someone that can throw a lot of innings. Maybe another long relief too.
Cueto!!!!
Kuato would be more entertaining.
I like it…keep em coming. We need all the help we can get. Waiting to hear about the sale…hopefully Arte gets a deal done so we can move on and finally build a winning team/franchise
I dont really understand the excitement or negativity towards this signing. Its a minor league deal, probably won’t amount to anything.
It will amount to some blown games for the Angels.
The only way I see that happening is if the current bullpen implodes somehow. I don’t think that will happen. One or two guys may falter or get hurt, but I suspect Holder wouldn’t be the first, or at maybe even second one brought up.
The current bullpen will likely implode.
I wonder how many people realize that a bad relief pitcher can blow two games in a three games series. And blow twice as many games as that before the manager realizes the RP is bad. Just look at the last series of the year last year, that’s three loses instead of three wins. It takes Trout 6 weeks to win three games.
The Angels have a lot of those pitchers.
Not necessarily Cueto, but another starter that can throw a lot of innings to keep them in the game.
So, does “Holder, 30 in June”, mean he turned 30 this past June, or he will turn 30 next June? Yea, I’m that guy, today.
this coming june.
I hope throwing mud against the wall and hoping for the best his not his plan. Perry has done this before and it doesn’t work.
The reason why the Angels pen has been a disaster over the last handful of years is due to these type of “dumpster diving” signings who end up spending a good chunk of time on the big league roster and are (more times than not) awful. With the exception of last offseason, Perry and Eppler relied heavily on these type of bullpen signings.
As far as the pen, I liked what Perry did last season, it didn’t work, nothing he has done has worked, but he didn’t ignore the problem
Adding projected arbitration salaries, the Angels are up against Moreno’s self mandated $190mm cap. This may mean Anderson, Urshela and Renfroe are the Angels big off-season additions and they will be relying on reclamation projects and minor league arms – Silseth, Canning, Rodriguez, Bush, Bachman, Joyce, etc – to round out the pitching staff. I hope this is not the case, but, if so, their minor league arms are far superior today than in years past. Fingers crossed that Moreno allows Perry to go over his self imposed cap of $190mm.
@Angels&NLWest I don’t believe they will be held to Arte’s soft cap mandate. Arte knows what the team is evaluated at and he knows he isn’t going to be the one paying most of the contracts. The strategy appears to be avoid any long term mega deal like 5 year plus 30 million plus to make the team as attractive as possible to potential buyers. i believe the Angel’s will spend much more than they ever have, but they wont dole out any long term commitments.
I do not understand the negativity. Dumpster Diving, Throwing Mud against the wall, blown save, etc……..
We aren’t even a month in to the off season and The Angels are already exceeding most peoples expectations as far as roster moves. The bullpen signings are not effecting the 40 man roster, nor the payroll so they are low risk signings. I honestly thought that, with the pending sale of the team, the off season would be ONLY the minor leagues signings.
Let me remind you again, it is less than a month in to the off season people!!!! There are a lot of teams that have not done anything yet.
@Angelsfan1972 I agree 100%. You are always going to get these Negative Nancy fair weather fans when the team has been losing. The farm system is moving in the right direction since Perry arrived. This is visible with the IE 66ers and Trssh Pandas coming in first place. It takes time for this talent to arrive on the major league level, but the truth is this farm system is no longer pitching deprived as it has been. The reality is this is as pitching rich and talent rich as the farm system has been in the past 10 years. He has spent a whole draft on nothing but pitchers and he followed that up by signing 7 more pitchers in the international draft. He is building something, which is more than I could ever say for his 2 predecessors..
The Angels should put up $90M for two years and sign Scherzer and show The LA market their serious!!
Sherzer is DONE. He can’t pitch pass September.
The Angels sure do love picking up guys they have at some point been on the fringes of the Yankees roster.
JOC Pederson wanted him on the Giants
Trade Rengifo and his $2.5 million salary while his value is at its highest to a team with a young bullpen piece who may have 2 or 3 years experience, sign a closer, one more SP, and Swanson for SS. Soto replaces Rengifo on the roster.
The cost- Rengifo for bullpen piece save $1,000,000
Number 5 starter- $8,000,000
Swanson $18,000,000 AV
Total cost $25,000,000 to tax level. Still would have room to add.
Swanson is not the answer. He struggled for years in ATL before becoming a decent hitter. I would be afraid he was another Cozart.