Kansas City Royals

Royals lose their closer, maybe for good

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 10:55 p.m. ET

foxsports

First he lost his job as the Royals' closer.

Now, before even pitching in a lesser role, Greg Holland is out for the rest of the year. Including the Royals' postseason run.

Before we get to the second of those, a few words about the first.

Earlier this week, Sam Mellinger wrote a long piece about the Royals' -- and in particular, Ned Yost's -- newfound willingness to change things when things aren't working, and cites the demotion of Holland as yet another example:

In the end, Yost knows his loyalty has to be to the team. To the grander goal of winning the World Series. He has said that one of his biggest mistakes in Milwaukee was staying in development mode for too long. He will not have to learn that lesson twice.

The big change came almost exactly a year ago. With the Royals in a crowded race for a playoff spot and a game against the Red Sox in the balance, Yost used an outdated bullpen-by-numbers process to choose Aaron Crow instead of Kelvin Herrera.

The decision made no sense on any level, except that Yost had decided that the sixth inning would be Crow's, no matter what. Crow gave up a game-turning grand slam, the Royals lost for the fifth time in seven games, and the next day pitching coach Dave Eiland persuaded Yost to take a more flexible approach.

--snip--

The Royals are trying to find the balance between competing for homefield advantage - after Tuesday, they are 1-1/2 games ahead of Toronto - and entering the playoffs with as much strength as possible...

To do that, the Royals need the best version of themselves. They made a strong step in that direction by elevating Davis and shoving Holland into the corner.

This is not how the Royals operated for so many years. This is good change, meaningful change, no matter how much it went against those old instincts.

I think Yost deserves a fair amount of the credit for how well the Royals have played over the last 14 months, but I think in many cases Yost's loyalty was probably due as much to his "options" as his "instincts." It's a lot easier to replace Escobar and Infante at the top of the order when Gordon and Zobrist are actually available (not to mention when Escobar and Infante are failing so miserably to reach base). If Yost had really changed, would Jeremy Guthrie have started 24 games this season? Would Alex Rios be on track for 400 plate appearances?

There's something to be said for loyalty, and maybe there's even more to be said for stability, and trusting your original judgment. Whatever the Royals are doing, it's working. But it's been highly apparent for the entire season that Wade Davis was better than Greg Holland, and still it took nearly six months for a change. And only then, as we now know, when it turns out Holland can't actually pitch at all.

How much will his absence hurt? Well, you want as many weapons as you can find, and now the Royals are down one. But even aside from Davis, they've still got Kelvin Herrera, Ryan Madson, and lefty Franklin Morales. Along with Duffy and Hochevar and Chris Young earlier in the games. It's probably not a great bullpen without Davis, but it's still plenty good.

For me, the story here is the future of Holland, like Joakim Soria a once-dominant Royals closer who's now looking at a long layoff and an uncertain future. And I'm reminded again just how incredible Mariano Rivera was.