After Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly reported on Thursday that the club was interested in, and would be attending the showcase of former Royals closer Greg Holland, San Francisco general manager Bobby Evans confirmed the report when he joined the Murph and Mac Show on Friday morning.
“Yeah, we’ll be at his workout on Monday and making sure we are thorough in our evaluation of where he’s at,” Evans said. “The good news for him is he’s doing this kind of showcase now, where a lot of times you’re seeing these showcases in January and February and you’re still trying to figure out really how close he is.”
“When you see a guy throw in a showcase in November, there’s a lot of time still yet to work with him and get him an offseason that will help him be better prepared for spring training.”
Holland was recently considered one of the best closers in Major League Baseball, making consecutive all-star appearances before receiving Tommy John surgery in October 2015. He posted a 1.44 ERA with 46 saves in his last full season in 2014, and a 1.21 ERA in 2013 with 47 saves. Holland turns 31-years-old later this month.
Evans made it clear during the team’s end-of-season press conference that taking care of the Giants’ issues at closer is priority number one this offseason. He went on to tell Murph and Mac that Holland is just one of a number of options San Francisco will be targeting this offseason, both in free agency and via a possible trade.
“Truth is, there are multiple options which is good for us,” Evans added. “There’s a pretty good number of one-year options out there in terms of trade market, there’s certainly some two-year options and there’s certainly free agents. So from our perspective, the important thing is not so much how you get the closer, but who it is.
“You’ve got to keep your options open because at the end of the day you can’t be assured of any one of a handful of guys. You got to expand your list, which fortunately for us there’s a lot of options.”
Listen to the full interview below.
