The Cardinals have made several injury-related moves, activating lefty reliever Tyler Lyons and catcher Carson Kelly while simultaneously moving righty reliever Greg Holland to the 10-day DL. The club also optioned catcher Steven Baron to Triple-A Memphis in a related move.
There’s no word yet as to the nature of Holland’s injury, though he’s certainly dealing with some swelling in his ERA and walk rate. On the season, those figures stand at 9.45 and 10.15, respectively. While he’s been unfortunate in the BABIP department (.388), there’s no arguing that Holland’s pitching has been astonishingly poor; the Cardinals are surely disappointed in the early returns on his one-year, $14MM contract. On the bright side, perhaps an extended rehab stint in the minors will allow Holland to get back on track.
The swap of Holland for Lyons, then, can probably be considered somewhat of a boost to the Cards’ bullpen. Though Lyons’ surface results don’t look much better (6.17 ERA), his strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.40) looks much less disastrous than that of his right-handed counterpart. Lyons emerged as a dominant left-hander for St. Louis last season, striking out 11.33 batters per nine innings en route to a 2.83 ERA.
Kelly’s return is welcome news for a Cardinals ballclub that’s been missing both he and feature backstop Yadier Molina all week. Formerly a highly-regarded catching prospect, Kelly hasn’t yet lived up to his billing. He’s hit just .160/.222/.200 across 108 plate appearances in the major leagues. He’ll likely see plenty of playing time as long as Molina remains out, though, so perhaps this is his chance to turn his offensive reputation around.
DL for Holland? Sure….
Exactly what ran through my mind…
He strained his ineptabone. Takes a long time to heal.
I read earlier it’s at least a six month wait for re-evaluation. 60 day DL likely.
On the bright side, to riff on the post … the contract is only one year.
On the not so bright side, it’s still 3.5 and a no-trade on Dex.
He refused to go to the minors to try
and get fixed , so they found another way to get him there! I hope it works.
Thank God. Holland needs to get right or stop wasting a spot on the roster.
On the DL with hurt pride….. may take a while for that to heal….
“There’s no word yet as to the nature of Holland’s injury, though he’s certainly dealing with some swelling in his ERA and walk rate.”
Pure gold.
Best thing I’ve read all year
Was going to comment that was some primo a-grade smoke right there lol, hats off to Kyle for that one
Truth hurts. Holland sucks. He doesn’t like it, the fans don’t like it, but in the end he was signed as the last reaction to the fan expectations and in reality the team would have been better without him (which the front office knew all along I suspect).
I have failed you cardinals. I have failed you.- Greg Holland.
Holland and the Rangers shoulda came to terms over the offseason. They do call the Rehab Rangers for a reason
Hip hip hooray!
This guy is about to become the 14million dollar mistake.
About to? What part of IS do you not understand?
Is there a pitchers’ equivalent of the Mendoza line? Maybe a sabermetric one?
I invented the Kozma line as a sabermetric equiv of the Mendoza Line itself.
socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/04/can-billy-hami…