The One Hitter…..Follow Up on The Dutch Oven

September 7, 2017

I recently wrote about Derek Holland and the unique position he and the Sox were in. You can read about it here: https://fromthe108.com/2017/07/20/the-one-hitter-the-dutch-oven/

But basically, the Sox were going to owe him an additional million if he got to 150 innings pitched. I threw out some ideas on what they could do and honestly, I was pretty impressed with what they did. They kept him as a starter all the way up to the 8/31 roster deadline, so they were obviously trying to move him. Unfortunately, they couldn’t garner any interest. But in that time, they also managed to have him pitch in relief 3 times. They used his bullpen day to have him come in as a reliever. The results were, well, not good at all. He pitched to a glorious 27.00 ERA in those appearances.

Now, they probably could have moved him to the bullpen for the rest of the season. However, they did the right thing and didn’t leave it in the managers hands to avoid that million dollar payday. Overall, this was a good job by the front office in what wasn’t a great situation.