D

The High-Flying Dutchman: Prospect Derek Holland Making Most of First Major League Spring Training

MESA, Ariz. – At the earliest opportunity, the Rangers very possibly will send prized pitching prospects Derek Holland Neftali Feliz to the minor league camp.

If they do get the early demotion, it won’t be for the usual reasons.

In the past, when the Rangers have brought their pitching prospects to major league camp, its quickly been evident that they weren’t ready to face big league hitters.

In the case of Holland, who was credited with the victory Sunday after pitching 2.1 impressive innings in a 7-2 win over the Chicago Cubs, he’s more than held his own. Holland, 22, has pitched three times this spring and improved with each outing. After allowing a pair of walks, a pair of hits and a pair of runs in an inning in his first exhibition, he’s allowed a run on six hits and a walk in 4.1 innings.

“The jitters are gone,” Holland said after his 45-pitch performance Sunday. “I’m a little bit calmer. After the first outing, I think I got a little more confident and relaxed.”

It’s nothing new to the Rangers. Holland shot up the club’s prospect rankings last year by quickly learning. He was not even among industry leader Baseball America’s top 30 Rangers prospects at the start of 2008. After going 13-1 with a 2.27 ERA at three different levels of the minor league system, he shot up to No. 2 (behind Feliz) in Baseball America’s rankings. And that’s in the minor league system Baseball America ranks as the best in baseball.

While Feliz, who is two years younger than Holland has been a bit erratic in his first spring, Holland has consistently gotten better.

On Sunday, he entered a tie game in the seventh, breezed through three major league hitters, and did the same against minor leaguers in the eighth. He got the first out of the ninth, but allowed consecutive singles and was quickly approaching his 50-pitch limit when manager Ron Washington opted to take him out.

“He competed today and he’s competed the whole time he’s been here,” manager Ron Washington said of Holland’s Sunday outing. “When I went out there to take him out, I told him he’d reached his pitch limit. And he asked me if I would extend him. I told him: ‘I don’t do contracts.’ But it tells you what you want to know about him. It’s March 8 and he wants to finish the thing out. He wants to compete.  If we’ve got innings for him, I’ve got no problems keeping him around longer.”

General manager Jon Daniels said he will meet with the major league staff Monday to discuss potential cuts. While players can’t officially be re-assigned to minor league camp until March 16, the Rangers unofficially move players over to early minor league camp, so long as they pay their major league per diem in the interim.  As starting pitchers start to extend their workload, innings available for prospects become scarce. The longer a prospect stays, the more it means the club is considering him an option for some point during the season. Barring catastrophic injuries, though, Holland has no shot at the big league Opening Day roster. He will begin the season either at Double-A Frisco or Triple-A Oklahoma.

Holland, however, isn’t yet considering what a few more days or another couple of outings may mean. To him, this is simply a chance to soak up knowledge.

“Just being around the big leaguers is productive,” he said. “It’s just a different atmosphere over here. I’m not trying to think about this and competing for a job. I’m not looking for anything as a goal out of this camp. I’m just trying to make the most out of being around these guys and this environment.”

Sure seems like he’s succeeding on that front.

Notes: INF Joaquin Arias is scheduled to return to camp Monday. He had been in the Dominican Republic for the last several days to be by the bedside of his gravely ill father … LHP C.J. Wilson will return to the “A” game pitching schedule on Monday. He is scheduled to go an inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers after having an outing pushed back a day due to a swollen left index finger. … Some pitching lines from a morning intrasquad game: RHP Thomas Diamond (3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 SO, 1 HR, 49 pitches); RHP Doug Mathis (4.0 IP. 3 H, 1 R-ER, 3 BB, 2 SO, 1 WP, 73 pitches) and RHP Willie Eyre (1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 SO, 1 WP, 22 pitches). … C Kevin Richardson tore the meniscus in his left knee earlier in the week and required surgery that will sideline him for several months. The Rangers have added C Emerson Frostad to the big league camp to replace Richardson.