The Rangers announced this afternoon they’ve designated reliever Greg Holland for assignment. The move clears an active roster spot for starter Jon Gray, who has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list to start tonight’s ballgame against the Mariners. Texas’ 40-man roster now sits at 39.
Holland broke camp with Texas after signing a minor league deal over the winter. The veteran righty got off to a tough start to the season, however, allowing five runs on six hits (including three homers) with a walk and five strikeouts through 4 2/3 innings. Rangers’ brass elected not to give him much time to try to work through those struggles, instead bumping him off the roster.
The 36-year-old didn’t have a ton of leeway after struggling to a 4.85 ERA in 55 2/3 frames with the Royals last year. Holland had posted a sterling 1.91 mark in 28 games during the shortened 2020 schedule, but he hasn’t managed to build off that success the past couple years. Holland was a three-time All-Star and one of the sport’s best few relievers during his prime in Kansas City, but he posted an ERA of 4.54 or higher in the three other campaigns between 2018-21.
Texas will have a week to trade Holland or place him on waivers. He has more than enough experience to refuse an outright assignment and elect minor league free agency if he passes through waivers unclaimed. That’d seem the likeliest outcome, at which point Holland could explore offers from other teams.
Gray is back after a minimal IL stint due to a blister on his pitching hand. Signed to a four-year deal over the winter, he tossed four innings of three-run ball against the Blue Jays during his team debut.
Good with the Rockies and Royals
It is time for Holland to call it quits and enjoy life after Baseball…
Maybe, but guessing a 75% HR/FB rate isn’t sustainable.
Do you really want to find out what percentage is sustainable?
The orioles do
I would. As long as it’s not on my favorite team.
I’d like to see it!
Only cost them $400k per appearance.
Pretty rough to DFA the guy after only 4 2/3 innings pitched. Maybe his velocity is way down? You’d think Texas would give him a little longer look given the state of their pitching staff.
I agree Dorothy
Nope his velocity was actually consistently 93-95 mph
Every inning is an adventure with Holland now.
I guess the FO saw everything they needed to see with Holland. Short leash, but to be fair the guy’s performance has been a crapshoot for the past several years.
Some team is going to pick him up. Last year his stats were good enough as a reliever out of the pen. Texas just has no other pitcher better than Holland so why cut him so early.?
I agree it’s weird to sign him and then cut him so quick but the only thing better about Holland, better than any other back end reliever, is name recognition.
Back to KC for a third tour of duty?
I would laugh so hard if he returned again to KC
Greg Holland for Sean Newcomb
Rangers would take the deal in a heartbeat. AA would never pick the phone up to that deal though.
Good thing TEX had such a high visible off season.
Never makes sense to try and build Rome in a day through free agency. Never works.
They had the two biggest over pays of free agency and did very little to improve pitching. The 2-8 start has to have Daniels in the hot seat. Sign one of the two SS and add a couple more quality arms and they would certainly be in a better position. Such a strange off-season
Sign one of the two SS and a couple more quality arms? You say that like it’s easy. They’d end up with a hugely bloated payroll and still be lucky to win 81 games.
Simply don’t sign Semien and use that money towards one of the many very good starters in free agency this year. They could of kept IKF and likely been in a better position financially with better roster construction. Obviously losing Jung hurts. Then next year or later this year hope that a couple of their pitchers in the minors hit the ground running.
He just got his 10 years of MLB service time… By a couple of days… He can retire now with a pension and lifetime medical.
After giving up more homers than innings, I’m sure he’s toast…
Looks like Holland will be going Dutch the rest of his career.
Let’s send Woodward to AAA. He sure as hell doesn’t belong in MLB. Pitiful excuse for a manager
Rangers suck, they totally blew their chance for a rebuild here. They will be tied down to these contracts for years, pretty soon the fans will stop coming through the turnstiles, and either they’ll buy everything, trading all the prospects they aqquired overtime to try and make a small run. Or they’ll trade all these players and set themselves back 3 years… ALL WHAT THEY HAD TO DO IS WAIT A FEW YEARS, and keep selling your good players. I don’t understand how casual baseball fans know how to build a baseball team better then these GM’s. We all knew these 300 Million+ contracts would not work out for them, they still did it.