11:28am: Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweets that Holland will be designated for assignment — not released. That may well be a moot point, as the DFA will merely give the Cardinals a week (it had been 10 days prior to the new version of the CBA) to either trade Holland or place him on outright or release waivers. Holland would be able to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency anyhow, so if the Cards aren’t able to find a taker on the trade market — which would assuredly require them to eat the vast majority of Holland’s remaining $4.89MM salary — then it seems he’ll hit the open market regardless.
11:17am: The Cardinals are expected to release right-hander Greg Holland today, reports Jon Morosi of MLB.com (Twitter links). His roster spot will go to pitching prospect Dakota Hudson, who is set to have his contract selected from Triple-A Memphis, per Morosi.
That report certainly meshes with some recent comments made by president of baseball operations on the Bernie Miklasz Show on ESPN 101, in which Mozeliak said to “expect changes” to the club’s bullpen in the near future (Twitter link). The Athletic’s Mark Saxon recently speculated that Holland would be cut loose and that Hudson would be brought up to the big league roster (Twitter link).
The Cardinals’ decision to sign Holland to a last-minute, one-year contract with a $14MM guarantee on Opening Day proved to be a catastrophic misstep for the club. Not only did St. Louis surrender a valuable selection in the 2018 draft to do so, but the Cardinals received nothing in the way of on-field value from the 2017 National League saves leader.
Holland missed all of Spring Training while waiting to find a deal he and agent Scott Boras dubbed suitable, and the Cardinals made the eyebrow-raising decision to bring him to the Majors after just two minor league appearances. Holland struggled immediately, walking four batters in his Cardinals debut on April 9. Those struggles were the first of many in 2018 for Holland, whose Cardinals tenure will come to a close with a 7.92 ERA, 22 strikeouts and 22 walks over the life of 25 innings.
As for his replacement on the roster, Hudson will come to the Cardinals having drawn considerable fanfare since being selected with the 34th overall pick in the 2016 draft. He ranked as the Cardinals’ No. 4 prospect on this week’s updated Top 30 rankings from Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, and while he falls outside that duo’s Top 100 overall prospects, Hudson is still viewed as a potential mid-rotation arm. The 23-year-old has pitched to a 2.50 ERA with 7.0 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 and a hefty 57.7 percent ground-ball rate through 111 2/3 innings in Triple-A Memphis this season.
Though Hudson is being promoted to replace a reliever, it seems quite likely that the organization will deploy him as a starter. Saxon speculated before that John Gant and/or Austin Gomber could be moved to the bullpen, with Hudson stepping into a starting spot and giving the Cards a couple of months to evaluate his future. Callis and Mayo note that while Hudson has four average or better offerings, led by his fastball and his slider, he still doesn’t miss many bats. His fastball/slider combo is strong enough, though, that he could work in relief even if he doesn’t pan out as a starter, per their report.
oh how the mighty have fallen
What a flipping moron for turning down $50mm+ from the Rockies. Another blemish on Boras’s resume!
Speaking of morons.
Cardinals giving him 14 million.
Exactly! Turning down $50m plus!! Wow.
Holland also declined a $17M QO from the Rockies. Seems he got really bad advice all around.
Boras isn’t the one who turned it down
No, but he probably advised his client to do so. If Boras wasn’t telling Holland that he could get him a better deal, then why would he turn it down?
And speaking of the Padres, they are number #1 on the waiver wire. Just saying…
@padres2019ha
We’ll turn Greg Holland into the next Greg Holland
Really? Since he signed with St. Louis he has looked like my Italian 65 year old uncle.. Swollen, fatigued, red faced, he has a little more fluff around the waist, it’s easy to see if you watched him in KC, COL and then to now. He is not in baseball shape and hasn’t been since he was wearing a Rockies uniform. I think the free-agent meltdown this offseason has had the reverse impact in Holland than it did Moustakas. Holland seems to have crumbled due to it.
And none of those places have beaches. He’ll come here, find his summer bod, a nice tan complexion, and that deadly slider
And balsley will help lather that sun tan lotion on
Come on now I won’t be able to stand up from my desk for the next 15 minutes
think about his stats.
Claiming him along with the remainder of his salary DOES seem like a Padre thing to do.
Why wouldn’t they take the opportunity for 3 million dollars to throw him in the closers role for a month to see how he does, if he performs then you trade him at the waiver deadline to a team that missed out on a reliever at the first deadline. Or what if someone’s closer goes down from now til then. This is exactly the but low sell high moves that the Padres should be doing. Even if it got then an above average prospect from a needy team, Holland will fall into their lap via waivers, Padres have say in what happens since they pick first.
Why not claim him and let him come sleep on his boy Hosmers couch for a month and some change while he try’s to re-discover himself. Maybe he appreciates the opportunity and works hard to get back.
With the money coming off the books from Hand/Cimber and whatever else gets dealt in the next week, that can be allocated for a lottery ticket type move like gambling on a Holland rehab. He has done it once. Wouldn’t put it past him.
It’s exactly like what they did by picking up Phil Hughes from the Twins for essentially a draft pick which turned into Grant Little who is already the clubs #27 top prospect. Yeah he cost cash but the Padres were creative and I applaud them for grabbing talent in an uncommon way.
Same could be done here with a guy who has a proven track record and with familiar faces in the club house. Why not? We suck. Throw stuff against the wall and see if it sticks.
So 7.5M bought the 27th best prospect for organization in Hughes deal?? Uhhhh..
If he is a high profile college bat that the organization projects to soar through the system then why not? It’s basically like you gave him a contract extension a week before he was drafted. If he is up in a year and a half which isn’t impossible, Alex Bregman was a college bat who was fast tracked, so was Kris Bryant obviously, but if Little is in the bigs at any capacity with the Padres in 2020, making league minimum/then going through arbitration, he will cost pennies.
Looking at how he was acquired and what he was acquired for at this time is unfair. Looking at it in 2021 glasses however might look like a very smart move. While he costs anywhere from 500,000 – 3 million from his rookie year until when he is on the last year of his rookie deal, you sprinkle the 7.5 bonus into theirs years and it makes him a 2 million dollar a year player.. which is a worth while gamble on a kid who already looks like he can be a Kingery, Hampson, Kemp type kid who could get fast tracked, play a bunch of positions and will earn every penny of what was allocated for his draft spot.
Make sense now?
@getright11
I believe as bad as the Cards are playing, by their own standards, they are still MILES ahead of the Padres
Its 2019 in the year of our Lord. Fernando Tatis steps to the plate against Carlos Martinez, whose fastball now tops out at 85. Every Cardinal fan in attendance is soaked in an apprehensive sweat. Martinez considers biting into his cyanide capsule to avoid having to face Tatis but he grits his teeth and serves up an 83 mph four seamer dead red. The pitch mid-flight, Tatis winks at Martinez and says “Nothing personal, kid” then launches it into Ferguson, igniting massive race riots. The city of St Louis collectively sobs while their city burns, and AJ Preller slightly smirks and nods his head.
Not funny at all but good try
Reality can be sobering
Not even a good try.
Actually, hilarious.
hilarious
Go back to fortnite
Meet me at dusty depot boi and youll get these hands
I laughed. But I couldn’t help but think it could’ve included a smashed baseball splitting the St Louis Arch in two equal parts, double crushing a helpless, hardworking hot dog vendor immigrant from Bosnia-Herzegovina while squeezing a yellow mustard container all over a arrogant customer’s new white shoes who’s only there because his city bus is late. The arch halves crash to the ground -causing an earthquake, which swallows everything and everyone involved except the bottle of yellow mustard.
Them’s the breaks.
Come to New York. Take Chasen Shreve’s spot in the pen now that we added Britton.
Why can’t you understand Chase is left handed. If he gets replaced it will be for a lefty. Why do new fans on every team hate their lefty RP?
I’m not a new fan. Shreve is a lefty and they just added a lefty in Britton
I thought bringing him in would solidify the pen. Sorry to admit I was wrong.
Don’t know the Cards’ plans, but splitting up games amongst starters makes a lot of sense. A 6 man rotation still exposes the bullpen, so split duties makes more sense.
hey Nationals. Start selling like it’s the last day of the flea market. and here is a league minimum replacement.
About time hopefully Cecil and Lyons are next
Amen
To late, this season is already lost and we can’t compete with this team in the future.
Time to sell!!!
The sky is falling Chicken Little.
now to get rid of Cecil Gregerson Mayers Lyons
I would keep Mayers and Lyons but Cecil and Gregerson need to go. Lyons needs to get healthy and Mayer’s has potential. Cecil, what a disaster.
Yeah, agree. They signed Webb, who may be a lefty option. Cecil is in the second year of his contract, easier to and cheaper to release, Gregerson is also on a 2 year deal, not that I wouldn’t like him to go too, but more difficult.
Can you believe that in the beginning before Holland that MO said Gregerson was going to the closer….Mo needs to let other people evaluate bullpen talent
Throw gregerson in there as well
need shakeup throughout Pham, jedd, Carp, Wacca, Fowler, Wong and Martinez
The Cardinals should find a team who could be interested in Holland before deciding to release him. Pitching in another team can help him. Probably, he can pitch well in Philadelphia. He has struggled badly this year, but a change of scenery can help him.
Back to Colorado? I’m not a Rockies fan, but they need pen help and he did relatively well there last year.
Trade him straight up for Bryan Shaw.
A 7.92 ERA won’t fly for Coors.
Sure it will. Right into the outfield seats.
A 7.92 ERA will do that to ya.
Nevertheless, wouldn’t mind him as a buy low offseason piece
The Padres have Kirby Yates and Craig Stammen who have been mentioned in rumors lately. Could see them snagging Holland, trying to tweak/tinker with him go fix whatever is wrong, or give him time to get back into baseball shape which it seemed he never did because he signed so late. If he is rehabilitated he can be traded at the waiver deadline in August. The Padres can get him 8-12 save opportunities and if teams like what they see, the Padres can package him. Basically exactly why the Reds are about to do with Matt Harvey.
Number one on the national league waiver wire. All he will cost is $. Could see Preller snatch him up and get creative with rehabbing and possibly moving later.
Hey he is already in baseball shape. He has just not performed
That’s great for Hudson!! Mozeliak is the sole problem of the mediocre Cardinals. With Mathaney’s firing this year and firing all of the other coaches last season, Mozeliak has very few people to hide behind to take Responsibility for these past and present declining Cardinal teams that he has assembled. When are the Cardinal Owners going to figure out the Mozeliak’s evaluations of players is extremely poor and that Mozeliak has wasted millions and millions of their dollars on poor, has been players.
Never understood this move right from the beginning. I recently just found my fantasy rankings while cleaning up my room. My note on Holland was wait till he loses the job pick up whoever gets the job.
Hopefully the simpletons remember in February 2019 when there’s a bunch of players who aren’t good and they say things like you can take all the free agents and make the playoffs how dumb that was.
Dodgers looking for a right handed reliever for the bridge to Jansen. Worth a shot?
No.
On a minors contract maybe. The Dodger already have more than enough dead weight relievers on the roster.
Still need a lefty thumper in the middle of the order. Moustakas makes sense, even if he is only a marginal upgrade. Wisdom and a promising lower level arm should get it done.
Worth a shot in Cleveland?
No.
They got rid of Oh and look what they acquired when they got rid of him. Oh was misused out of the bullpen in 2017. I can assure you he’s a better pitcher than most of the pitchers in the Cardinals bullpen.
They should’ve done this after his first outing! This guy was a joke and a complete waste of money!
Be very surprised if he makes it through waivers. Some rebuilding team will grab him and hope he turns it around.
Difficult to imagine a scenario where a waiver claim is successful. The claiming team would have to offer the Cards to take responsibility for some part of his salary or the Cards would do just as well to release him. They’d also have to keep him on their active roster or go through the waiver process again. Much more likely in a week Holland is a free agent, and somebody signs him to a minors contract in hopes he can work out his problems down there over the next few weeks.
A monument to bad judgement and unforeseen consequences. Holland’s for looking for an insane contract, the Cardinals for signing him to an expense one year deal….except, MLBTR did predict him for 4 years $50M. So, was Holland that crazy? And maybe St.Louis thought it was getting a bargain. But a WHIP of 2.240 and 28 runs (6 unearned) in 25 IP will morph into a DFA and lesser prospects for 2019.
So much for the accusations of collusion last winter. We’re seeing that the guys who ended up with one-year deals instead of 3 or for years are STILL overpaid even at the bargain rate.
Yes Holland was that crazy. He was offered more than the $50m projected for 4 years and was offered it for 3 and he turned it down!!!
This has a Dodgers reclamation project written all over it.
Daniel Hudson say hello to your new bullpen buddy.
Pretty rough season for the Cardinals in the FO, in the clubhouse and on the field. I would make a getting kicked in the nuts joke, but even that is a sore spot for redbird fans this year. I would expect sweeping changes in the offseason, but their ownership might not be that progressive.
Cardinals front office thinks “sweeping changes” means going from a double no fat latte to a cappucino, red bow ties to blue , and wrapping sweaters around their waist instead of their shoulders. If they get really crazy, Mo and Girsch will go from mousse to gel.
I said this back in 2016. The Cardinals were and are on the path the Phillies went down 5 years ago.
First of all, $4.87 million to a billion dollar company is nothing — lit’s like rounding. Second, since the Cardinals have absolutely no chance this year I’ve been hoping they would get rid of the dead weight and start bringing up their Memphis kids to test them out. So getting rid of Holland and Matheney are positive first steps.. And lastly if Holland gets picked up by another team and excels again the Cardinals need to take a serious look at their coaching staff to find out why Holland pitched like a Little Leaguer under their watch.
He probably pitched like a little leaguer because he had a little manager for the first 94 games?
LMAO!
Back to KC, Royals will get him right!
Eiland is gone. Nobody on that pitching staff now is fixing him.
Is that you Greg?
How much longer before this becomes the fate of Dexter Fowler? I predict the Cards will eat the last year of his contract, and then he’ll play like a man possessed for the team that picks him up for league minimum.
Maybe there is an out in his contract that I don’t know about, but Fowler is in the second year of a five year deal!
As long as Scott Boros got as much money for himself as possible, nothing else matters: Not the client; not the Cardinals; not the fans.
Are you sure about that? You don’t think he puts his clients best interests first?
Hell no. Boras puts HIS interests before his clients. Boras had Holland turn down a record setting (by AVV) contract for a reliever. Being greedy by demanding the 4th year. Now Holland is screwed
Do you?
The Mets are interested. Probably.
I wonder if MLBPA and the agents still think the issues with the free agent class last season was caused by collusion?..
It’s about time!! This was an over reaction signing based on the outcry of the fanbase and the previous manager. The fact is that Holland was not good at baseball for the cardinals and they gave him every chance to get it right. Go be bad elsewhere, we are all stocked up on overhyped players.