Giants trade Derek Holland to Cubs for cash considerations

After designating him for assignment last week, the Giants have traded Derek Holland (and “a cash consideration”) to the Cubs for “a cash consideration”.

That’s good news for both teams. The Giants have a Derek Holland replacement in Drew Pomeranz and the Cubs were in desperate need of a reliever who could get out lefties. Here’s this:

Derek Holland’s tenure with the Giants will probably be defined by three things:

1. Being the Giants’ rotation stalwart in 2018 (30 starts, 36 games pitched, pitched season from start to finish)
2. The Ballot Bros.
3. Openly questioning the team’s direction and accusing them of faking an injury

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s examine the rest of this transaction: the Giants traded Holland and cash to the Cubs... for cash?

The cash consideration for cash consideration part is the weird wrinkle in all this. I’m going to guess that what’s happening here is that the poorly managed, cash-strapped, and obviously lying Cubs want the Giants to pay some amount of Derek Holland’s contract ($7 million, ignoring the bonuses available for starts made) that will ultimately be determined by the other moves the Cubs make before the trade deadline.

In the CBA, “cash consideration” is supposed to apply to the current year, so, this isn’t a “future consideration” wherein the Cubs will pay the Giants $10,000 next year. It could mean that the Giants will pay some percentage of Holland’s salary and then get some sort of negotiated dollar amount based on the percentage once trade season resumes after the World Series. That cash consideration would still apply to the current baseball year (per the CBA, it runs December 2-December 1).

Edited to add: Alternatively, it could just mean that the Giants are going to pay some percentage of Holland’s buyout for next year, which I totally forgot about when I wrote this piece initially.