The Change: Derek Holland Hasn’t Changed?

Derek Holland is back. Two starts in, things look pretty good. He still owns a 4.30 career ERA, and is coming off of major knee surgery. Is there anything in his profile that should make us worry?

With a returning player like Holland, who is still available in 79% of Yahoo leagues, the first thing that stabilizes is velocity. Jeff Zimmerman showed that it only took three starts for fastball velocity stats to become meaningful for a pitcher returning from the disabled list. Also, in that piece, he shows that even a start or two can be enough.

Holland’s velocity is down. He’s using the sinker more than the four-seamer this year, and the two-seamer has dropped less velocity than his four-seamer, but his velocity is down. He’s currently living around 92 mph when he used to sit between 93 and 94. His new velocity is still impressive for a lefty — the average lefty starter averages less than 91 on their fastball — but it’s not what it used to be.

The typical answer to lower velocity is a change in pitching mix. Holland has obliged. From BrooksBaseball:

There are some strange facets to the new mix. For one, his two-seamer is faster than his four-seamer right now, and that’s rare. The two-seamer is getting a terrible ground ball rate right now (21%), so why throw it more than his four-seamer, which traditionally gets more whiffs. Maybe because his four-seamer hasn’t gotten a single whiff this year. And his change, at least the seven or so he’s thrown this year, is dropping less than his two-seamer.

This year’s good work so far is based almost entirely on his slider, which would lead baseball with its 29.8% whiff rate, if it qualified. The 20% whiff rate on the curve would give him the Garrett Richards package from the left side, at least relative to the lefty population.

Does the change in mix make more sense if we open up the results to include last year’s numbers?

If you do that, you see that Holland’s two-seamer is indeed a better pitch than his four-seamer, both by whiffs (6.9% to 5.2%) and grounders (52% to 37%). So it makes sense that Holland has moved to the two-seamer, and that should bode well for his ground-ball rate at the very least. (Probably his whiff rate, too.)

With a 10% whiff rate and a 50% ground-ball rate, the change is just short of average when looked at all the way back to the beginning of 2013. But! With his reduced fastball velocity, there is no longer a ten mph difference between his fastball and change. Now that the difference is between seven and eight percent, Holland is probably right to make the pitch a show-me.

With a plus slider, curve, and sinker, Holland has what he needs to succeed. Even with reduced velocity, he’s above-average among lefties in that department. Don’t worry too much about the change.

Can he be what he was last year? Many of the changes he’s made this year have been an continuation of the evolution he’s been undergoing since his first day in the bigs. Every year, he’s thrown the four-seam less and the slider more. Let’s say that some of what he did last year was attributable to that change. That means we shouldn’t be too harsh when we regress Holland.

Quick Take: Even when he’s not up against Seattle or Kansas City, Holland is startable in almost any league. Even the homer risk at home against Atlanta in his next start comes with added strikeout upside, making him a decent streamer in the shallower leagues. Expect an ERA in the mid-threes once he gives up some homers, a decent whip, and an above-average strikeout rate for a starter.