Breaking down the Clay Holmes deal from all angles

December 7th, 2024

The Mets and veteran reliever have agreed to a three-year, $38 million deal, a source told MLB.com's Anthony DiComo, and the move is intriguing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Holmes' new club plans on using him as a starter. Holmes, who saved 74 games for the crosstown Yankees over the past three seasons, will be moving back into a starting role for the first time since 2018.

It was an up-and-down 2024 campaign for the 31-year-old right-hander -- he was unscored upon in 29 of his first 30 appearances but then gave up eight earned runs over his next seven outings. He righted the ship after that, posting a 1.93 ERA over his next 19 appearances. He then hit another speedbump, relinquishing the closer role after blowing a save on Sept. 3, when he surrendered a walk-off grand slam to Wyatt Langford and the Rangers.

Despite the rocky regular season, Holmes still finished with a 3.14 ERA in an All-Star campaign before pitching to a 2.25 ERA in 13 postseason outings, including five scoreless appearances in the World Series, which the Yankees lost in five games to the Dodgers.

Holmes by the numbers

2024: 67 G, 63 IP, 3.14 ERA (131 ERA+), 30 saves, 3.02 FIP, 1.2 fWAR
Career: 311 G (4 starts), 337 1/3 IP, 3.71 ERA (113 ERA+), 74 saves, 3.44 FIP, 4.8 fWAR

What this means for the Mets
Via Mets beat reporter Anthony DiComo

The Mets do not intend to use Holmes as a reliever. Instead, they will convert him to the rotation, banking on his ability to use a three-pitch mix multiple times through a batting order. After losing Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and Jose Quintana to free agency after the season, the club has now replaced two of those rotation spots with Frankie Montas (two years, $34 million) and Holmes.

Known for inducing ground balls (Holmes¡¯ 64.6% ground-ball rate was among the highest in MLB), Holmes showed decent strikeout stuff as well with 68 punchouts in 63 innings. But Holmes never relied exclusively on his sinker, throwing it just over half the time. The rest of the time, he kept hitters off-balance with a slider and sweeper -- two pitches that will become even more important in the rotation. MORE >

Hot Stove implications
Via senior national reporter Mark Feinsand

Holmes¡¯ signing with the Mets is intriguing for a number of reasons.

First, the plan is to convert him into a starting pitcher, continuing the trend we saw last year with Jordan Hicks, Reynaldo Lopez and Garrett Crochet. Given the price of starting pitching this offseason, it¡¯s a shrewd move by the Mets, who can always put Holmes back in the bullpen if the starting experiment doesn¡¯t work out.

Second, with Holmes signing with the intention of becoming a starter, the teams looking for late-inning relief help have one less free agent to target. That should help the markets for the top closers on the market, specifically Tanner Scott and Carlos Estevez, who are the two best relievers out there.

What will be interesting to see going forward is whether teams continue to target relievers with an eye on making them starters. Jeff Hoffman, most recently of the Phillies, is a name to watch in that category, as some teams have expressed interest in signing him and converting him into a starting role.

Diving deep
Via analyst Mike Petriello

There are a lot of people who think that Holmes faltered for the Yankees in 2024, and those people are, for the most part, wrong. It¡¯s not that you want to lead the sport in blown saves, exactly, but there¡¯s a reason that¡¯s not really a metric that carries much weight in 2024 -- some of those came before the ninth and some came when his fielders forgot how to play baseball, and when you rely on grounders, well, about 25% of those get through for hits, which means weird things can happen.

More importantly -- aside from the 13 generally good postseason appearances that quickly get forgotten -- is that the underlying metrics all say that Holmes was, once again, excellent, as he continued to get grounders and miss enough bats, and ultimately while his Statcast expected ERA (xERA) did go up, it was all the way from 2.79 to 3.29. It¡¯s probably worth noting that even in a "bad year that had him lose his closing job,¡± he had 30 saves, a 3.14 ERA, and made the All-Star team -- while being an irreplaceable part of a World Series bullpen.

Of course, he¡¯s not part of anyone¡¯s bullpen now, because the Mets intend to start him -- he hasn¡¯t done that since 2018. While there have been a handful of success stories in recent years, we also tend to forget the ones that don¡¯t work out (like A.J. Puk). If there¡¯s a thread that seems to link them, it¡¯s having multiple good pitches (check, and remember he started using a four-seamer in the playoffs); no particular platoon split (check); and an arsenal that isn¡¯t completely reliant on overwhelming velocity (check).

This may or may not work, but hey, what¡¯s a starter these days anyway? If it just means Holmes gets 13 outs every few days instead of three outs every other day, that might be enough -- and he can always go back to the ¡®pen if it doesn¡¯t work out.

Stat to know
Via MLB.com research staff

319: That's the number of consecutive relief appearances Holmes has made (including the playoffs) since his last start, which came on the final day of the 2018 season, when he took the mound for the Pirates at Cincinnati. Four of the 11 Major League appearances Holmes made during that debut campaign in Pittsburgh were starts, including his lone career victory as a starter, a July 14 outing in which he tossed six scoreless innings against the Brewers. While Holmes had a couple of long relief outings in 2019, he has not completed more than two innings in any appearance over the past five seasons.

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