Reviewing the options we might have for 2B in trade, one of the things that jumped out at me is that in terms of raw slash stats, not too many of them are clearly superior to the guy we have out there right now. Of the guys out there available for trade (meaning, not guys who we merely think should be available like LeMahieu and Dozier but players actually being dangled) the only obviously superior options are Cabrera and Machado.
Holt isn't a superstar by any means but I certainly don't mind him hitting 8th and 9th, or even occasionally second. He gives us the luxury of having a replacement level guy who can make contact with the baseball and not embarrass himself with his glove. This prevents us from making stupid desperation trades to further drain our farm, and if we need to save our ammunition to bring in a durable lower rotation starter instead, he gives us that luxury too, since he can provide ~1 WAR level coverage at a position where it can actually be pretty hard to find guys much above replacement level.
In other words, he gives us options to limit the damage of what IMHO is looking like a but of a seller's market at the deadline. And it's worth pondering given the injuries to our rotation whether it might be the course of wisdom to pass on filling the adequately-covered hole on the roster and move towards filling other more obvious holes, like 5th starter.
If things fall through and we can't upgrade at 2B, I'm certainly comfortable with rolling with Holt and upgrading other parts of the team instead. I doubt I'm the only one here. Which since it's a serious possibility if the prices on the trade market don't come down a bit, I think it's fair to consider the possibility that that is exactly what happens.