Reliever Roundup: Milner, Leiter, and Holderman Signal New Offers

Each winter, the shiniest free brokers available on the market seize the eye of baseball followers in all places. “Ooh, might you think about Kyle Tucker in my group’s colours?” That’s a enjoyable dialog no matter which group you root for. However most groups aren’t going to signal Kyle Tucker. Most groups aren’t going to signal a high 10 free agent, interval. Certainly, come June and July, there’s an excellent likelihood that the free agent signing you’re going to both laud or rue will contain some reliever you’d by no means heard of six months prior. So let’s meet a batch of pitchers who’re going to make followers bear in mind their title, a method or one other, in 2026: Hoby Milner, Mark Leiter Jr., and Colin Holderman.

I used to think about Hoby Milner as one of many endless wave of Brewers who appeared unbeatable in navy and gold and unspectacular elsewhere, however because it seems, that was unfair to him. He departed the higher Midwest for the primary time since 2020 final winter, signing a $3 million cope with the Texas Rangers after Milwaukee non-tendered him. Removed from crashing out, although, he spun one other stable season, his fourth in a row, whereas dealing with 70.1 innings of the highest-leverage work of his profession. He completed the season with a 3.84 ERA and a 3.39 FIP, just about a useless ringer for his profession numbers.

Why, then, is his cope with the Chicago Cubs for only one 12 months and $3.75 million? It’s as a result of he’s an excessive lefty specialist, and that ability set typically comes with a restricted market. Milner isn’t a standard late-inning reliever, a matchup-proof flamethrower. He has monumental platoon splits, triple the league common for lefty pitchers over a reasonably substantial pattern. It’s for precisely the rationale you’d count on: Milner throws sidearm and with little velocity, counting on a sweeper that he throws practically half the time towards lefties to tie them into knots.

Towards righties, he has no plus choices, so he mixes his bread-and-butter sinker/sweeper with a so-so four-seamer/changeup mixture to a minimum of give them a couple of issues to consider. That plan doesn’t work notably effectively. Righties slugged .445 towards him in 2025, and that’s really decrease than his profession mark. That implies that he resorts to strolling them fairly steadily slightly than giving in. In his profession, he has sported a 4.7% stroll price towards lefties, verifiably elite, and an 8% mark towards righties. He walked greater than 10% of the righties he confronted in 2025, the truth is.

This can be a great spot to say that I ranked Milner forty sixth on my High 50 Free Brokers listing and projected a much bigger contract than he acquired. Positive, he shouldn’t face righties too typically. Positive, he’s not a better. However we’re speaking a few reliever who throws 65-plus innings 12 months after 12 months with good run prevention numbers. That sort of manufacturing is difficult to search out, no matter the way it’s formed. Milner has repeatedly confirmed himself able to retiring main league hitters in massive portions. Becoming his abilities to a group’s wants simply falls on his supervisor.

In Chicago, that’ll be simply good. Craig Counsell managed Milner in Milwaukee, and he’s typically agile and adaptable with regards to getting essentially the most out of his bullpen. I feel this can be a nice match, notably given how few different lefty relievers the Cubs have on their roster. Mix that with my excessive estimation of Milner total, and I’d have been keen to supply him greater than this to safe his providers if I had been the Cubs.

Just a few time zones away, the Athletics signed a equally unheralded reliever to a equally quick deal. Mark Leiter Jr. is headed to West Sacramento for one 12 months and $2.85 million. Like Milner, Leiter has been much better towards lefties than righties in his massive league profession. In contrast to Milner, he’s right-handed; he achieves his mastery of southpaws because of a nasty splitter that he spams relentlessly towards them.

That splitter is the important thing to Leiter’s success. The remainder of his arsenal is nothing to jot down dwelling about. He sits 92-94 with a shapeless, useless zone sinker that opponents have peppered mercilessly in recent times. He mixes in an enormous gradual curve, 74 mph and with massive 12-6 break, to maintain hitters from sitting on that fastball/splitter mixture. It’s so gradual that batters appear to have the ability to establish it, although; they solely chased the curveball out of the zone 20% of the time in 2025, persevering with a career-long development for the pitch.

Utilizing Leiter successfully is a managerial problem. The massive splits counsel a specialist’s position, however you may’t simply apply that logic willy-nilly. In spite of everything, he’s a righty who depends on one very specific pitch to get lefties out; every part else he throws is fairly unhealthy towards them. He’s greatest used towards low-power righties and lefties with out nice plate self-discipline; not like a Milner-type specialist, Leiter depends closely on chases and strikeouts to beat lefties.

I like Mark Kotsay’s possibilities of getting some good innings out of Leiter, however it’s certainly not riskless. After a mid-season journey to the IL in 2025, he fell precipitously within the Yankees’ leverage hierarchy, to the purpose the place he didn’t seem of their first postseason collection and didn’t even make the roster for the second. I don’t assume the identical will probably be true for the A’s, who’re determined for lefty-stopping relievers, however the level is that for those who’re in search of LOOGY certainty, Leiter isn’t fairly nearly as good as Milner.

One other means of placing it: Leiter’s second act within the majors began in 2022. He’s racked up a 112 ERA- and 103 FIP- in that span; he’s slightly worse than common, in different phrases, a filler arm who can provide you acceptable innings. Milner has an 87 ERA- and 77 FIP- over the identical 4 years, in way more innings. I do know which of the 2 I’d slightly have, and it’s not shut. However Leiter remains to be an fascinating arm, and for a budget-constrained A’s group, I see the enchantment.

These two offers each felt to me like reliever-needy groups checking containers. The final signing of this text is one thing else totally: the Guardians signed Colin Holderman to a one-year, $1.5 million deal after the Pirates non-tendered him slightly than go to arbitration. In contrast to the Cubs and the A’s, the Guardians aren’t determined for reduction assist. Even with Emmanuel Clase seemingly by no means to return to the sphere, Cleveland had top-of-the-line bullpens within the majors in 2025.

In the meantime, saying that Holderman had a tough 2025 undersells it. After fighting command in 2024 however posting good outcomes anyway, issues fell aside for him this previous 12 months. A 12.8% stroll price is in fact disastrous, however even worse, his 14.4% strikeout price was a profession low and led to an endless string of disastrous outings. He ran up a 7.01 ERA with peripherals to match (5.86 FIP, 5.70 xERA, and so forth) and in addition hit the IL twice with knee and thumb accidents. Even after Pittsburgh traded away a lot of the group’s greatest relievers on the deadline and referred to as Holderman again up from a post-injury minor league task, he didn’t keep on the roster for lengthy. By September, the Pirates had optioned him again to the minors.

So what does Cleveland see in Holderman? Most likely what I do: a reliever whose outcomes didn’t match his underlying stuff, and in a minuscule 25-inning pattern apart from. Attempt to mannequin Holderman’s strikeout and stroll charges utilizing his underlying statistics, and also you’ll fail. He drew extra chases than league common, threw within the strike zone greater than league common, and allowed a below-average contract price. He posted stable first-strike and swinging strike charges. He doesn’t have nice command, however each of our pitch-level fashions assume that his command was about nearly as good as at all times in 2025, and his stuff nonetheless jumps off the web page, highlighted by a nasty slider and a sinker that he runs up into the higher 90s.

Should you didn’t present me Holderman’s on-field outcomes from this season, I’d be fairly enthusiastic about his possibilities of being efficient in 2026. And provided that he threw all of 25.2 innings, I’m extra apt to imagine the underlying course of statistics than the outcomes. Any consequence is feasible in such a brief stint. Typically relievers simply stink for a 12 months earlier than bouncing again like nothing was flawed. Typically it’s a canary in a coal mine state of affairs, they usually’re by no means good once more. If I informed you I knew which of the 2 paths Holderman would observe, I’ll be mendacity. But when he returns to his peak kind, it’d hardly be a shock; he mainly threw all the identical pitches as at all times in 2025, in any case.

You is likely to be questioning how a group with playoff aspirations can afford to take that sort of threat. Two mitigating elements make me love this signing for Cleveland. First, Holderman has choices remaining. In truth, we don’t even mission him to make the Opening Day roster at this level, although that’s in fact topic to alter within the coming months. Reliever volatility is much simpler to abdomen when you may stash a man within the minors if he begins slowly.

Extra importantly, the Guardians don’t want Holderman. Their bullpen is already nice. If he’s a mid-4.00 ERA filler arm, that’s wonderful; he didn’t price a lot and he gained’t be round for lengthy. If he’s horrible, no downside; he can simply spend 2026 within the minors. If he’s nice, although? If top-of-the-line groups within the majors at pitching improvement can coax him again to his early-career kind? Then it’s a windfall acquire, one other late-inning arm to assist their bullpen-heavy recreation plan.

That works partially as a result of Holderman has choices and partially as a result of Cleveland simply has so many alternate options. I’m not precisely certain who of their bullpen will step up in 2026, however at this level, I count on the system to work and for some extra Guardian I’ve by no means heard of to excel. That vaunted pitching improvement system clearly creates a excessive flooring for the bullpen. Thus, signing somebody like Holderman, with a unstable vary of outcomes, is a wonderful complement. The unhealthy outcomes aren’t any massive deal as a result of another person can deal with the workload in these circumstances. The great outcomes? They’re glorious for a $1.5 million funding. Although I feel the more than likely consequence is that Holderman by no means turns right into a late-inning monster, I like the concept of signing him and discovering out whether or not he can bounce again.

Are any of those offers more likely to be season-altering? No. However getting the little offers proper issues, notably for groups just like the A’s and Guardians that attempt to make rather a lot occur on a shoestring finances. I just like the Cubs’ signing the a lot of the bunch – they obtained an excellent reliever for a transparent position and paired him with a supervisor who is aware of the right way to execute that plan. I like all three, although, as a result of every fills a selected position for the signing group. Once you’re filling out the fringes of your roster from the cut price bin part of free company, that’s all you may ask for.