Fantasy Fare: The wait goes on for Greg Holland owners
It’s been nearly two weeks since Greg Holland, the last notable free agent to sign, was called up to begin his reign as the latest closer for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was understood that Holland, who racked up 41 saves last season for the Rockies, would be given a couple of innings at the major-league level to ease into the role and fantasy owners who took a late-round chance on him signing somewhere had to be gloating. But here we are, 13 days later, and Holland has yet to make a ninth-inning appearance for the Cards. The all-too-obvious reasons are two-fold. First, Bud Norris, who was keeping the seat warm for Holland, has been doing a bang-up job, going 4-for-4 in save opps with a 1.93 ERA and 17-1 K-BB ratio over 9.1 innings. Second, It’s not as if Holland is forcing the team’s hand with an 8.10 ERA over his first five outings. He walked four of the five batters he faced (one intentional) the night of his callup on April 9, looked like he’d regained his footing with a couple of shutout innings the next few days, but then struggled again on Tuesday, giving up two more walks and a monster homer to Cubs’ Javier Baez without getting an out. His Cards sample size is so small — 3.1 innings, 19 batters faced — that looking for anomalies in his peripheral stats wouldn’t be fair. But it should be noted that his four-seam fastball, which registered 93.8 mph last year, has spiked the radar gun at a glacial 87.1 the past couple of weeks. But the problem isn’t velocity as much as it is location as, prior to a four-up three-down seventh inning on Thursday, he had thrown almost as many balls (32) as he had strikes (33). We’d like to say he’ll get the job eventually, but in the erratic world of closers, Norris could wind up hanging on to it all season, or it could easily be someone else entirely getting the saves.
