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Q.  Why 'talking points' and not 'player of the day'?

A.  The above phone-cam of Dr. D is the basic reason.  It limits him to stream-of-consciousness, assuming that the consciousness part holds up for another half hour.  His shtick will be off-the-cuff, with minimal bookwork, and anyhow Holland is a fleeting rumor as opposed to a potential Mariner.

You know your two options.  One of them is 'take it.' 

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Q.  SSI is bullish or bearish?

A.  Wayyyyyy bullish.  

Last winter, we posted this absurd article about a young AL lefthander who'd been walking 4-5 men per game.  We recommended giving a Dan Haren-type package for him.  By a remarkable coink-y-dink, said lefthander went to Washington and ripped off a 21-8, 2.89 season with 207 strikeouts.

Twelve months on, Derek Holland is sitting on a similar perch:  Young lefty with :faceslap: spit and polish, but .... already good now, and with ginormous upside lurking just around the corner.

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Q.  What's the basic template?

A.  Blow-em-away lefty, wild in the zone, offspeed is a work in progress ... 

Matt Moore has an extra foot on the fastball and his change is a bit more advanced than Holland's "slider."  Holland however has 3.5 pitches and has triangulated himself a bit farther on.  Other than that they're very similar.

Clayton Kershaw's fastball has lost a foot and is now equal to Holland's.  Don't kid yourself about Holland's fastball -- it is a true overmatch pitch.  (The rest of Holland's game, including mechanics, is much inferior, at the moment.)

Gio Gonzalez is more curve ball and less heater.  In fact it's hard to think of a young pitcher in this category who is as tilted as much towards "fastball" and as far away from "breaking pitch" as Holland is.

Jon Lester is quite a bit more of a pitcher at this point, with cutter and all the trimmings ... even as a rookie, let's leave him out of this.  Also David Price we're going to cut out of this because too Randy Johnson-ish, both with the fastball, the hook and with the delivery.

Scott Kazmir was similar, but was more graceful with a bigger curve ball ... 

You know what, the young CC Sabathia was mostly heater, with questionable offspeed stuff in years 1 and 2.  Also, CC had a lot in common with Holland as far as the mechanics, command, and other things...

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Q.  Holland's mechanics being?

A.  Kind of Jeff Fassero-ish, except Fassero came over the top with a forkball.  Holland is kinda kludgy, muscles the ball, sidearms it and short-finishes it.  Has a bit of a hitch.  Every bit of this was true with CC Sabathia.  

In fact as I look at it, I'm starting to wonder what differences there are between Holland and the young Sabathia.

On the plus side, Holland keeps his weight low and his nose to the leather.  The delivery is not pretty, but he keeps his elbow low and it's a workmanlike stroke.  It looks like it will hold up fine.  Gio's certainly is not superior.

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Q.  Based on the previous POTD's, there's nothing unusual about a young flamethrowing LHP walking 4-5 men a game and still becoming Sabathia or Bedard or Gio Gonzalez?

A.  What's unusual would be if they didn't need three years to jell.

Some of these LHP kids walk people; Holland preferred to let them do their worst, which they did.  His HR's were way up.

Holland's 84 slider doesn't break much, nothing like Kazmir's or Gio's or ... I can't think of a LHP like him whose slider breaks less.  Holland's 75 change curve also reminds of a Hector Noesi situation.

The command is questionable ... Holland's entire game is just in its embryonic stages.  He's looking at a rocket ride up from here.

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Q.  Why specifically would we believe that Holland will improve his breaking pitches?

A.  He has been improving them.  And that is the group tendency here.  What reason do you have to believe that Jesus Montero will ever hit better than he's doing now?

Jason Vargas' pitches were never going to get better; his challenge was ever-increasing pitchability.  But the Holland type of pitcher -- Gio, Kazmir, Matt Moore -- they have fastballs and they gradually add the curveball water to the fastball wine.   Sabathia's a classic precedent.

If I were him I wouldn't be fiddle-dee-doo-dah'ing with four pitches.  ::shrug::  It delays things.

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Q.  Why would Texas be willing to deal such a player?

A.  I dunno.  Six other star pitchers plus Zack Greinke ... and the players Holland will bring back?

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Q.  Flip Holland for Wil Myers?

A.  Holland's worth way more than Wil Myers.  Unless you think Myers is Mike Trout or Ken Griffey Jr.  In which case you should deal Holland for Mike Trout, I guess.

Mark my words.  Bring Wil Myers in here and after 80-90 AB's, he'll be a huge question mark in the minds of Seattle bloggers.

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Q.  Anything else?

A.  How about this heavy Nostradamus action from STATS AOL original Justynius?

Olney reporting Asdrubal to the D'Backs would be part of a 4-team Upton trade, and KC is the third team. I think this means M's and not Rangers since we were already talking with KC and had interest in Upton last winter. The fact that the fourth team doesn't want to be named also makes me lean M's. Sounds like the Tribe is the holdup. Think how much easier this would be if the M's talent evaluators were able to recognize Asdrubal Cabrera has more value than a burnt out Eduardo Perez. :)

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Well, apparently they're also not able to recognize that an ML-year-2 version of a great pitching prospect is preferable to an ML-minus-year-2 version.  That, or they REALLY think they've got Felix The Sequel.

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Q.  That's quite a contract that Holland's got on him.  How often do you get to underpay a TOR starter by 50-75% for a decade.  Sweeeeet.

A.  With big, fat, hairy team options at $11M in 2017 and 2018.  This will be minimum wage, assuming of course that the earth is still standing.  Er, hurtling.

The word is that the Mariners are balking at giving up Taijuan Walker for Holland.  Funny thing is, HERE is where a "win now" paradigm becomes totally justified.  Derek Holland is precisely what you hope James Paxton will be in two years.  It's therefore justified to give two of the big three for him -- one for the front half of the hope and one for the back half of the hope.

Derek Holland?  Now we're talking.

My $0.02,

Dr D