Morning everyone and happy President\u2019s Day!<\/p>\n
Yesterday afternoon we got word that right-handed reliever Grant Holman was claimed off waivers by the Arizona Diamondbacks, ending his time in the A\u2019s system and thinning out the bullpen:<\/p>\n
That\u2019s lame. The A\u2019s were clearly trying to sneak him though waivers and hoping he would go unclaimed. That would have opened up a spot on the 40-man roster but instead the A\u2019s trickery comes back to bite them in the butt.<\/p>\n
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Holman was one of the more intriguing relief prospects that the A\u2019s had developed in recent years. The 25-year-old, a former 6th-round pick in 2021, began his pro career as a starter but shifted to a relief role after struggling in his first couple years in the system.<\/p>\n
That change in role did wonders for Holman. After a year adjusting to his new role Holman had a lockdown 2024 season split between Double and Triple-A, allowing just 3 earned runs in 40 appearances. That earned him his first call up to the big league squad and though he wasn\u2019t as unhittable as he was in the minors he still showed plenty of potential in his brief call up.<\/p>\n
Holman entered 2025 with raised expectations but fell flat this past season. He struggled when he was on the mound before eventually getting demoted back to Triple-A. There things continued to go south as he suffered rotator cuff tendinitis that more or less ended his season before he could ever fix things on the field.<\/p>\n
Though he was coming off a down season it wasn\u2019t long ago he was a hot relief prospect coming up through the system. The homegrown arm was likely looking at beginning the year in Triple-A but would have surely been an option at some point this season. That won\u2019t be the case as he\u2019ll instead be an option for the Diamondbacks down in Arizona. It\u2019s not a crippling loss but it won\u2019t feel good if we see him take off with his new team while the A\u2019s continue to face bullpen struggles. Relievers are super unpredictable so we\u2019ll have to see if this was a smart move to move on from Holman, but my gut says that we\u2019ll regret letting him go before giving him a real extended chance.<\/p>\n
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Have a great week guys!<\/p>\n
A\u2019s Coverage:MLB News and Interest:Best of X:<\/p>\n
Pretty close to just about right but I\u2019d still take Soddy over a couple guys higher than him:<\/p>\n
Thoughts on that projected Opening Day lineup?<\/p>\n
Recent roster moves, ICYMI:<\/p>\n
Former fan favorite is joining division-rival Rangers:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morning everyone and happy President\u2019s Day! Yesterday afternoon we got word that right-handed reliever Grant Holman was claimed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2404],"tags":[2132,3806,146,22,4314,47,5,38,4812,5717,4850,12121,4916,4,459,11148,1949,544],"class_list":{"0":"post-576145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-diamondbacks","8":"tag-aaron-civale","9":"tag-andy-ibanez","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","12":"tag-arizonadiamondbacks","13":"tag-baltimore-orioles","14":"tag-baseball","15":"tag-diamondbacks","16":"tag-grant-holman","17":"tag-kc-royals","18":"tag-mark-canha","19":"tag-max-schuemann","20":"tag-mitch-spence","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-nick-kurtz","23":"tag-scott-barlow","24":"tag-the-athletics","25":"tag-tyler-soderstrom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116082211970191027","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576145","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=576145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}