Clay Holmes: Why He's Ready To Be A Starter

With One Change he has True Starter Potential and is a Fit in the Rotation

(Written in February 2025)

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This offseason David Stearns and the New York Mets signed pitcher Clay Holmes to a 3

year $38 million deal. Holmes had spent a little over the last 3 seasons with the Yankees as a

reliever. In the last 3 seasons, he pitched to a 2.85 ERA over 189.2 innings and finished top 10 in

the American League in Saves each year. The Mets, however, plan to use Holmes differently.

The plan is for him to make the switch back to the starting rotation which is how he began his

career making 4 starts for the Pirates as a rookie in 2018. Holmes, with one minor adjustment,

has true potential to be the next reliever to starter success story following the likes of Michael

King and Seth Lugo.

Holmes attacks hitters with a 3 pitch mix and a heavy reliance on his Sinker. In 2024, he

threw his Sinker 56.3% of the time followed by a Slider at 23% and a Sweeper at 20.5%. The

reason they don't add up to 100% is because 2 pitches registered as a 4-Seam Fastball accounting

for that last .2% as seen in the breakdown below.

His pitches actually have really good profiles too. Below, you can see his full movement profile along with the table below that of the average profile of each pitch. It’s fairly uncommon for a pitcher to throw a different Sweeper and Slider, but Holmes does a good job at differentiating the two.

Holmes is different from the typical ground ball pitcher. He is unique in that in addition

to being at the very top of the league in generating ground balls, he has the ability to generate

swing and miss. Below are some of his 2024 metrics with league percentile ranking along with

the actual value of each metric.

As you can see, Holmes is way above league average in generating ground balls and

missing barrels, a great combination to have. That being said, there are two areas of improvement that need to be fixed in his command. His Walk Percentage and Chase Percentage. He was middle of the pack last year in Walk Rate and way below average in Chase Rate. A high walk rate and low chase rate is certainly going to hurt as a newfound starter as it just increases pitch count, making him less effective and hinders his ability to go deep into games.

A great pitch for Holmes to add would be a Changeup. That being said, Holmes is a

supinator. Supinators tend to struggle with a Changeup as it is difficult for them to pronate. In

this scenario, it may actually be more beneficial for him to throw a Splitter instead of a

Changeup. 2024 saw the most Split-Fingers in a season in the pitch tracking era dating back to

2008. A pitcher in a very similar situation at this time last year was Jordan Hicks of the San

Francisco Giants. The two share a lot in common as they are both reliever turned starters, big

ground ball pitchers (Hicks was in the 85th percentile compared to Holmes’ 100th percentile),

but most importantly they are both supinators. They also share nearly identical arsenals as Hicks

is a predominately Sinker/Sweeper guy accounting for 75% of his total pitches. In 2024, Hicks

started throwing a Split-Finger for the first time consistently in his career. He threw it 19.1% of

the time, up from 1.7% as a reliever in 2023. Hicks’ Splitter averages 5.1 inches of tail and -1.3

IVB. It also averages 10.2 mph off of his Sinker which is of note. It proved to be a good pitch for

Hicks as hitters had a .181 BA, .287 SLG, .243 WOBA, and 40.8% Whiff against the pitch. It

also generated 23.3% Chase which is something Holmes needs.

The reason Holmes should mimic Hicks’ Splitter is because it plays so well into his

strengths. Holmes had the most success as a ground ball pitcher in the bottom of the zone as

indicated by his heat map of all pitches that resulted in an out.

The Splitter, essentially an easier Changeup for supinators, is designed to be thrown near

the bottom of the zone which will play into Holmes’ ground ball strengths. Ideally, when

tunneled well with his Sinker, and a similar 10 mph off of it, this would also play into his swing

and miss strength and even contribute to an increased chase rate, while simultaneously

decreasing walks solving both issues at once. The reason I like a Splitter for Holmes as opposed

to a true 4-Seam Fastball is because of the fact that he is a ground ball pitcher. 4-Seam Fastballs

tend to have the most success up in the zone resulting in fly balls, which is not Holmes’ area of

expertise. A fourth pitch is essential as he now has to face a lineup 2 or even 3 times a game and

a Splitter is just the right compliment to his arsenal.

Holmes has been one of the best in the game the last 3 years based off of advanced

expected metrics as indicated by his percentile rankings below. Not only that but he is extremely

good at keeping the ball in the ballpark. He has only given up 8 homeruns over the last 793

batters faced over the last 3 seasons. This is even more impressive when you consider the fact

that Yankee Stadium was home to the third most homeruns in that same timespan. He will now

move to a slightly more pitcher friendly park as Citi Field was middle of the pack giving up the

15th most during that duration. This ability to limit the long ball makes sense given he is a

ground ball pitcher, but is still a pivotal part to his game and essential for a starter to prevent a

big inning.

There are certainly potential risks with this decision—as there are with any major change.

For starters, he hasn’t pitched more than 70 innings in a big league season ever. It's certainly

possible post All-Star Break he starts to experience some fatigue and not be the same pitcher.

Each of the last three years his ERA has been at a minimum .98 higher post break than pre break. Additionally, with a higher pitch count, it's certainly possible that without the proper off season

and Spring Training, his Sinker may not be as hard as it was as a reliever with increased usage.

Lastly, I think the more obvious one is just increased exposure. A lineup now has 2 or 3 cracks at

him each game. The more time a hitter sees a pitcher live the advantage tends to go to the hitter

as they learn their arsenal and visually how it comes out of the hand.

I certainly believe the potential reward outweighs the potential risks in this situation. Clay

has the right strengths, and with the development of a Splitter, would have the perfect arsenal to

make the switch. We’ve seen it be done with the aforementioned Jordan Hicks and more notably

Michael King and Seth Lugo. After becoming a full time starter for the first time in 2023, Lugo

finished second in Cy Young voting in 2024. Similar for King, in his first full year as a consistent

starter in 2024, he finished 7th in Cy Young voting. With the right adjustment to his arsenal to

play into his already established strengths, Holmes has every possibility of following the trend of

making the successful switch from reliever to starter.