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<\/a><\/p>\nAfter returning from the IL in late April from the knee sprain until returning to the injured list in late May for the thumb injury, Holderman posted an 8.71 ERA with 7 walks to 5 strikeouts. After returning, Holderman\u2019s numbers improved, but his control did not. He lived in the heart of the zone with his sinker, and he just never regained feel for his sweeper. He was eventually demoted to Triple-A to finish the season.<\/p>\n
So, what can we expect from Holderman in 2026? For starters, a clean bill of health. That is priority number one. Ensure his thumb is okay, and go from there. Tendinitis and tendinosis can always flare back up, but if taken care of correctly, it can be mitigated.<\/p>\n
Secondly, continue figuring out what\u2019s there with the splitter. Though Holderman\u2019s splitter doesn\u2019t differ a ton from his sinker\u2019s movement plot, its usage becomes very important against left-handed hitters in creating the handedness platoon neutralizer. Holderman threw his newly found splitter just 9.8% of the time to lefties, but it generated a 40% whiff rate across 10 swings with just two being put very weakly into play. It\u2019s a new pitch, and he didn\u2019t throw it at all after returning from injury. Whether it played a part in him getting hurt or if he dropped it as he was slowly working himself back into game shape is unknown, but once Holderman returned, lefties hit just .154 with a 31.3% overall whiff rate. Add in continued development, and Holderman can almost drop his sweeper from his LHH arsenal entirely and work exclusively sinker\/splitter\/cutter.<\/p>\n
Speaking of the sweeper, I expect his to return closer to form almost right away. A full offseason of work with the Guardians\u2019 pitching development staff in Arizona plus Carl Willis and Brad Goldberg make me trust that he will right that ship. The key is keeping it down and away to right-handed bats and as a backdoor weapon to lefties early in counts to steal strikes. Where Holderman had issues, if we reference the above graphic, was burying it like he was able to in 2024. His sweeper possesses quality stuff, and it can be a valuable weapon inside to right-handed hitters in a similar vein as a backup slider, but it\u2019s vastly more effective when he prioritizes whiffs with it down and away. Holderman\u2019s sweeper in 2024 had an opponent average of just .163, an xwOBA of .216 with a 40.1% whiff rate. It was among the better sweepers in baseball, ranking fifth in all of MLB in run value with +6 RV. That drastically fell off in 2025 (-7), and location tells the story. A good comparison here is Tanner Houck, but as a reliever. When you can\u2019t locate your sweeper down and away, a lot of its deception deters its stuff, and when it gets hit, it tends to find grass or bleachers.<\/p>\n
Holderman\u2019s walk issue likely maintains, though getting it under 10% would be ideal. Cleaning up his sweeper and his handedness splits also helps this while in turn helping the strikeout rate get back to it\u2019s normal numbers. Holderman will come to Cleveland with two minor league options remaining, so a chance to be patient with him as he gets acclimated with the org is there. All in all, this is a quality depth signing with high upside, and given the cost, a very team-friendly deal as well. Here\u2019s to hoping they\u2019re not done with the bullpen yet, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Way back at the non-tender deadline towards the end of November, the Pittsburgh Pirates non-tendered reliever Colin Holderman.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,38929,38552,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-473473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians-analysis-editorials","12":"tag-cleveland-guardians-news","13":"tag-clevelandguardians","14":"tag-guardians","15":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115705106207298185","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}