Royals right-hander Greg Holland will undergo Tommy John surgery to repair what was said last week to be a “significant” tear in his right ulnar collateral ligament, reports MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan (Twitter link).
The surgery may very well bring Holland’s Royals career to an end. The former closer eligible for arbitration for the final time this offseason and would be due a raise on this year’s $8.25MM salary. As he won’t pitch for most, if not all of the 2016 season, the Royals will most likely non-tender him, making him a free agent. Holland, of course, could sign some form of backloaded, two-year extension in the interim or return to the club on a restructured deal following his non-tender, but if it reaches that point, Kansas City will have to compete with the other 29 clubs to see which is willing to present him and newly hired agent Scott Boras with the best opportunity.
Manager Ned Yost said at the time his injury became public knowledge last week that he believes the damage in Holland’s elbow to date all the way back to last August. The Royals are said to have asked Holland to get the elbow checked out on multiple occasions this season, but Holland’s preference was always to pitch through the discomfort. Ultimately, though, his September struggles became too significant, and with his fastball sitting in the high 80s (as opposed to its typical residence in the mid 90s), Holland underwent an MRI, bringing him to this outcome.
If the timeline of the injury is accurate, then Holland’s postseason efforts and first half of the 2015 season are nothing short of incredible. He pitched 11 innings of one-run ball in last year’s postseason, notching a 15-to-5 K/BB ratio in that time. In the first half of the 2015 season, Holland recorded a 2.70 ERA with 31 strikeouts (against an uncharacteristic and, in hindsight, ominous 15 walks) in 26 2/3 innings.
To this point in his career, the 29-year-old has a 2.42 ERA with 12.1 K/9, 3.5 BB/9 and 145 saves in 319 2/3 innings. All of those innings came as a member of the Royals, who selected Holland in the 10th round of the 2007 draft.
I’m curious to see how his situation plays out, with this essentially becoming his unplanned contract year. The idea of a backloaded 2-year deal, loaded with incentives makes sense to me from Holland’s perspective, but with Boras involved, who knows what will happen.
End of his career? Really? Braves had no interest in him until he had the injury.
Didn’t say the end of his career — said of his Royals career.
Ah, big difference. Thanks for the correction.
I also misread that for some reason.
Glad I’m not the only one that misread it
Yeah, braves could use him for 2017.
Sad to see this guy go down!
“The Royals are said to have asked Holland to get the elbow checked out on multiple occasions this season, but Holland’s preference was always to pitch through the discomfort.”
Organizations should crack down and force these player attitudes out.
You get a sane way to address it correct or you do not get in the game.
Yeah, I agree that if the team is concerned about it, there’s no reason why the player shouldn’t comply and get it checked out. It’s not like there’s really anything to lose for the player. Either they really are fine, or they have say a UCL tear. We all know that doesn’t necessarily mean TJ surgery right off the bat. The headline a year ago could read “Holland has UCL tear but feels like he can pitch through it.” Then, when his numbers start tanking, we kind of know why already, and instead of facing the probability of getting non-tendered he might have been looking at TJ three or four months ago and a mid-2016 return. Boras or no Boras, it’s not like Holland was going to be able to quick sneak a huge extension in without having to pass a physical.
If I get hurt at work but don’t fill out a first report of injury fork until a year later, I’m going to end up paying for all my own treatment.
I sensed something was wrong with him earlier in the year but never really saw anything alarming in the blogs. Maybe he was worried of losing his closing job. Maybe he’s just a competitor and wanted to play through the injury like players use to do (now if you have a hangnail you’re placed on the 15-day DL…lol). We can speculate all we want but bottom line is he lost some respect from me to not at least get it checked out and THEN decide to try and play through it. Oh well, R’s still have Davis or Herrera or Madson or Hoch who can all close during hte post season if needed.
You’d think that you’d want to at least know what the problem is before making an informed decision to pitch through it, or not.
The DL does get used a heck of a lot more than it used to, but then again medicine has advanced to the point that they can specifically diagnose problems rather than making statements like “his leg is sore” and telling to pop some Advil and put his big boy pants on.