Rangers’ Derek Holland fat? Hardly, but 2016 is a big year

As pitchers and catchers reported to Texas Rangers on spring training Thursday, a few observations were made regarding Derek Holland:

He’s left-handed, and he lives up to the stereotypical quirks attached to lefties.

He’s established himself as the early front-runner for the annual Harold McKinney Good Guy Award.

And he’s certainly not fat, and he doesn’t care for it when his physical conditioning is called into question. Especially by sports writers, hardly the models of fitness.

The heavy talk, though, will serve as another motivational tool for Holland, who is driven by all forms of criticism. The critics — including some within the organization — seemingly have an endless supply of fodder to throw at him when he struggles.

And, as Holland sees it, every one of them is wrong.

“A person has a personality, and they try to use that against him when they don’t really know what I do behind the scenes,” he said.

“People have bad starts. Why not just accept it? I have people telling me, ‘Oh, he’s doing his impersonations and he’s distracted.’ No, I’m [expletive deleted] not. I know what I’m doing.”

The Rangers, though, can’t have another significant Holland injury or another season of wild swings of ups and downs. He and fellow lefty Martin Perez — not Yu Darvish — are the keys to the Rangers’ rotation, and another incomplete mark for Holland could take him to the end of his Rangers road.

This is the last guaranteed season on his contract. The Rangers won’t want to pay out an $11 million option on an injury-prone pitcher, should Holland be injured again, and general manager Jon Daniels might seek to find a better use for that money should a healthy Holland be ineffective at age 29.

Even with Colby Lewis perennially at the end of his rope. Even with the budget-conscious Rangers not interested in paying the going rate for free-agent pitching in what looks to be a relatively thin 2017 free-agent class.

Holland can take care of any contractual doubts with the kind of season the Rangers have always believed was possible. These are Holland’s prime seasons, and the Rangers always thought big when dreaming of Holland in his prime.

Instead, he has been injured the past two seasons, a long road that started when he tripped over Wrigley the Dog. His detractors suspected that he was either injured while playing hockey or that Tito’s the Vodka might have been involved.

The shoulder injury that took him out after one inning of the 2015 home opener was just one of those baseball things, but another dagger to Holland. This guy badly wants to compete and help his team win.

He was doing just that four months after his shoulder injury, but the critics were quick to jump after he slumped following his infatuation with Major League, Jobu, the Wild Thing haircut and an evening at an Anaheim Del Taco with Charlie Sheen.

Jobu needed a refill, and Holland was told to dump the do.

“The thing that pissed me off about that is, it’s funny how well I pitched with the haircut, and I have a couple bad games and the haircut was the reason I pitched bad or I saw Charlie Sheen,” Holland said. “No, it [expletive deleted] wasn’t. It had nothing to do with it. I just wasn’t pitching like I was capable of.”

That was the case much of September after getting smacked on his pitching hand by a batted ball in Houston. His middle finger was injured, probably badly enough for him to stop pitching, but he kept going with results that rated somewhere between so-so and so bad.

The worst was Game 4 of the division series, when Toronto pounded Holland, tied the series and won it two days later. No one took it harder than Holland, which takes us full circle to the fat talk.

Holland tried to drown his sorrows, including a party-or-die trip to Dubai. The partying, which may or may not have involved adult beverages, led to an off-season weight gain and talk inside the organization that Holland was out of shape.

Or in a shape — round.

That manifested itself into a very public question during a press conference last week. So far in Surprise, Holland has started calling his workouts “fat camp” whenever the media is present.

He said that he checked in Tuesday at 217 pounds, right where he needs to be after hitting a high point of 230 pounds.

“I know how hard I work, so I can get as fat as I want,” Holland said. “I know I’m going to show up at the weight I’m supposed to.”

The Rangers, though, want to know if Holland is going to show up this season after missing all but three months the past two seasons. There will be concerns about how many innings he can pitch and how many starts he will need to catch up on after all those missed reps.

Holland, who is making $10 million this season, said that 200 innings is very possible and that he won’t need any time to learn how to pitch again. He believes he can be very good, which the Rangers believed in earnest as he rose into a rotation mainstay.

Holland cautions that there will be bumps along the way. Even Cole Hamels will encounter some bumps. All starters do over the course of 30-plus starts a season.

With Holland’s bumps, though, come the critics. He might never quiet all of them, but a healthy and productive 2016 would go a long way toward doing so.

It could also help the Rangers go a long way, and help Holland stay put for 2017.

“I go out there and compete, and I give everything I have,” Holland said. “There are going to be days when you get hit around. I’m not distracted. I’m focused. I work extremely hard to make sure I’m prepared when I go out there.”

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 2:55 PM with the headline "Rangers’ Derek Holland fat? Hardly, but 2016 is a big year."