Pittsburgh Pirates: Derek Holland should be Traded Soon

The Pittsburgh Pirates are off to the worst start in the National League.  How should they operate moving forward with one of their pitchers?

To no one’s surprise, the Pittsburgh Pirates are not playing competitive baseball.  They were predicted to finish in the basement of the National League Central and so far it appears that is where they will end up.  The Bucs record sits at a National League worst 3-10, which is good for a .231 winning percentage.

Still, there are positives that can come from this season.  Players like Colin Moran, and even Geoff Hartlieb, have shown progress from last season.  Furthermore, the team is getting an opportunity to develop some of the young players on the roster, although, hopefully, they will add more young players by the end of the year.

This could be very possible over the coming weeks.  The Major League Baseball Trade Deadline will be on August 30th, just a few weeks away.  Now this deadline will not be like those in the past as there will be a lot of factors that will figure into it.

One of those factors is that the playoffs are expanded this year.  This will certainly cut down on the number of teams that will sell-off during the season.  With the Pittsburgh Pirates being far out of contention, they will be one of the only true sellers from now until the deadline.

The first player that the team could and should trade is Derek Holland.  Holland has been one of the Pittsburgh Pirates few bright spots in the early going.  He has made two starts for the Bucs and has given up six total runs.  In his first start, he was charged with two earned runs through 5.2 innings.  He followed that up with a very strong outing Minnesota, where he was hit a little more giving up four runs.  All those runs came in the sixth inning and obviously he should have been pulled.

Overall Holland has had some bad luck.  In both his starts he had runners score after he was lifted from the game and teams are not going to focus on two games.  There are some positives to Holland this year; his strikeout rate is a  career-best at 22.7 percent and he is holding opposing teams to a .158 batting average.  Outside of a couple of bad innings, Holland has been very effective.

There are plenty of teams across the league that need pitching depth.  Teams like the Atlanta Braves, Houston Astros, Chicago White Sox, and Minnesota Twins have all suffered losses to their rotation and bullpens.  That is only to name a few as there are plenty of teams that are in contention that will need to add pitching.

Derek Holland fits a perfect profile for a lot of playoff teams.  Holland has shown he can throw effective innings as a starter this year.  He could go and fill in for a team and make some starts until their rotation gets healthy.  Over the past few seasons, Holland has also spent time as a reliever.  With an uptick in his velocity and strikeout rate, the veteran would make for a nice reliever as well.

All in all, Derek Holland is not going to bring back a big-time package.  He is a veteran pitcher who will likely be used as a swingman.  Still, the Pittsburgh Pirates brought Holland in on a minor league contract so anything they get for him will be positive.  With the deadline just a few weeks away, Holland very likely will only make another appearance or two for the Pirates.  I would look for him to be traded sooner rather than later.