Mets Sign Clay Holmes

The Mets officially announced the signing of Clay Holmes to a three-year deal that allows him to opt out after the second season. It’s a reported $38MM guarantee for the Wasserman client. Holmes will collect $13MM salaries in each of the next two years before deciding whether to opt out of the final year and $12MM. The deal comes with an approximate $12.67MM average annual value for luxury tax purposes. The Mets intend to use Holmes as a starting pitcher.

Holmes, who turns 32 on Opening Day, heads across town after three and a half seasons in the Bronx. He was an inconsistent pitcher for the Pirates between 2018-21. The Yankees, intrigued by his gaudy ground-ball rates, acquired him at the ’21 trade deadline. That move wasn’t met with a ton of fanfare, but Holmes broke out immediately after donning pinstripes.

Owner of a 4.93 earned run average at the time of the trade, Holmes fired 28 innings of 1.61 ERA ball to kick off his Yankees career. He took over as Aaron Boone’s closer by the following season. Holmes saved 20 games with a 2.54 ERA across 63 2/3 innings to earn his first All-Star nod in 2022. He followed up with 63 frames of 2.86 ERA ball while picking up 24 saves.

Holmes got out to another strong start this year. He didn’t allow an earned run over 13 1/3 innings through the end of April. He had a productive May as well, though he started to struggle with his command. That was a sign of a somewhat rocky summer. Holmes posted a 3.64 ERA in 30 appearances between the start of June and the end of August. While his rate production wasn’t terrible, he relinquished a lot of leads. By the start of September, the Yankees had replaced him in the ninth inning with Luke Weaver. Holmes finished the season in a setup role.

The 6’5″ righty concluded the regular season with a 3.14 ERA across 67 innings. He struck out around a quarter of batters faced against a league average 8.1% walk rate. Holmes got grounders at a characteristically excellent 65% clip. It’s far from a bad season, but he was bizarrely prone to blowing leads. While he recorded a career-high 30 saves, he was charged with an MLB-worst 13 blown saves. No other reliever gave up more than eight leads. He went into the postseason trending in the wrong direction after losing the closing job.

To his credit, Holmes rebounded when the lights were brightest. He only gave up three runs in 12 postseason innings. While he’d fallen behind Weaver in the bullpen hierarchy, he remained one of Boone’s most trusted setup options. Holmes picked up five holds without giving up the lead once in October.

That finish was a more fitting ending to his strong run in the Bronx. While the fanbase was divided at times on his reliability, Holmes posted good to elite numbers throughout his Yankee tenure. Of the 86 relievers with at least 150 innings over the past three years, Holmes ranks 17th in ERA. While his 25.7% strikeout percentage is middle of the pack, his 68.6% ground-ball rate is #1 among that group.

There’s no doubt that Holmes can be a productive reliever. The Mets believe he can be more than that. They’ll give him a chance at a full-time rotation role for the first time in his MLB career. Holmes has started four major league games, all of which came during his 2018 rookie season in Pittsburgh. Those didn’t go well — he allowed a 7.80 ERA with more walks than strikeouts in 15 innings — but that’s of little consequence. The Mets aren’t placing any stock in a minuscule sample that predated his breakout by three years.

Like many MLB relievers, Holmes was a starting pitcher in the minors. He’s not completely unfamiliar with working multiple innings, but it’ll be a tough test against big league hitters. He’ll probably need to make an adjustment to his pitch mix. Holmes has essentially abandoned his changeup since moving to the bullpen. His 96-97 MPH sinker is his go-to offering, the pitch most responsible for his huge grounder rates. Holmes has deployed two distinct breaking balls — an 87 MPH slider and an 83-84 MPH offering that Statcast classifies as a sweeper.

Having three pitches is an advantage as Holmes tries to navigate a lineup two or three times in an appearance. However, he hasn’t used a changeup or splitter that most starters have to handle opposite-handed hitters. Holmes has fared well against hitters of either handedness, but his strikeout and walk profile is far better when he holds the platoon advantage.

As a Yankee, Holmes held right-handed batters to a pitiful .203/.267/.284 batting line. He struck them out at a huge 31.7% clip against a tidy 6.2% walk rate. He fanned only 19.8% of left-handed opponents while issuing walks at a 9.8% rate. Holmes still held lefties to a mediocre .235/.318/.307 slash, but that’ll present more of a challenge as he works through a lineup multiple times.

There’s significant upside if Holmes can make that transition. Reliever to rotation success stories have gotten increasingly common. Seth Lugo, Reynaldo López, Garrett Crochet and Holmes’ former teammate Michael King have become top-of-the-rotation starters after spending most of their careers in relief. Jeffrey Springs, José Soriano and Zack Littell look like mid-rotation arms. It hasn’t been uniformly positive, though. Jordan Hicks wore down quickly when the Giants tried him as a starter last season. The Marlins experimented with A.J. Puk in the rotation. They pulled the plug by the end of April after he had four terrible starts.

Puk moved back to the bullpen with relative ease after the rotation experiment flopped. That’s a possibility for Holmes as well. The Mets surely believe he could return to a setup role in front of Edwin Díaz if he doesn’t take to the rotation. They’d be paying a high but not outlandish price for a leverage reliever in that case. Robert Stephenson, Rafael Montero and Taylor Rogers have signed three-year deals in the $33-35MM range in recent years. The Braves guaranteed López $30MM to give him a shot as a starter. Hicks, who is younger than the rest of that group, signed a four-year deal worth $44MM.

MLBTR predicted Holmes would land a three-year, $30MM contract that valued him as a setup arm. The Mets are going a little beyond that based on the perceived upside as a starter. The opt-out gives Holmes a chance to retest the market after two seasons. If he proves he’s capable of starting, he could do quite well in that return trip. There’s precedent for starters getting lucrative three-year deals at age 34. Lugo signed for $45MM, while Yusei Kikuchi and Chris Bassitt each inked $63MM contracts.

Holmes is the second rotation addition for the Mets in recent days. They finalized a two-year, $34MM deal with Frankie Montas on Wednesday. They’ve taken upside fliers in the middle of the market thus far — a strategy they employed to great success last offseason with Sean Manaea and Luis Severino. There should be more rotation moves on the way. New York already lost Severino and could see Manaea and Jose Quintana depart as free agents.

Kodai Senga and David Peterson likely have rotation spots secured, but there’s little certainty with a fifth spot that’d go to one of Tylor Megill or Paul Blackburn at the moment. Senga barely pitched this year, while Holmes could be on an innings limit. The Mets are still potential suitors for a top-of-the-market arm like Corbin Burnes or Max Fried, though president of baseball operations David Stearns has yet to make that kind of move. At the very least, they’ll continue to identify upside targets in the middle of free agency.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post first reported the Mets and Holmes were in agreement on a three-year deal worth $38MM. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the opt-out clause and confirmed the Mets would use Holmes as a starter, which Sherman first suggested earlier this week. Will Sammon of the Athletic reported the salary breakdown.

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