Starting was always something that former New York Yankees closer Clay Holmes wanted to do at the major league level. Now, he will get that opportunity across town with the Mets.
“I didn’t want to look back at the end of my career and say, ‘Man, what could’ve come from that?'” Holmes said during his introductory press conference on Tuesday. “It’s something deep down I had a passion for, and it excited me.”
The 31-year-old right-hander has not started a game since his rookie season in 2018 when he was with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Over the next six years, he developed into a back-end reliever who became the Yankees’ closer in 2022, saved 74 games in three seasons, and made two All-Star appearances.
Preparing for his eighth MLB season, Holmes will now try to stretch out to a starting pitcher’s workload despite not throwing more than 70 innings in a single season during his pro career.
His conversations with Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, and assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel — who joined Holmes and Juan Soto as Yankees that made the jump to Queens this winter — helped instill the confidence that it is a transition that could be carried out successfully. He has also begun working out with numerous starting pitchers, including new Boston Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet (once a reliever, too), to get an idea of how they prepare to undertake an expanded workload.
“The biggest thing is just monitoring. It’s hard to put numbers on things… I don’t so much believe in that,” Holmes said. “There are things you need to monitor and see how your body is holding up… My intention going in is to throw 160 innings. I want to throw as many innings as I can. Obviously, you want to do that safely.”
Not much has changed for Holmes, at least in the first six weeks of his offseason. The real work will not begin until January, when he would usually be “kind of stalling” as a reliever. Instead, he will continue to build up to potentially throwing 100 pitches every five days rather than short bursts every other night.
He will be working on expanding his pitch arsenal, which relied heavily on his putaway sinker, which he threw 56.3% of the time in 2024 while leaning on a slider and sweeper. He is also working on developing a four-seam fastball that began to throw late in the season and a change that is “something I’ve messed around with over the course of the year.”
“There’s some room there for an arsenal,” Holmes said. “It’s tough to do as a reliever. You have a very limited window and pitches you can keep sharp. You have to rely on your strengths a lot more. I do think I have the depth and the arsenal to be a little more unpredictable rather than rely on my sinker all the time. Starting gives me the best opportunity to do that and expose it.”
That sinker will remain the foundation of his stuff — a reliable option he can always fall back on if his secondary pitches are struggling.
“I think keeping that as the main thing, making sure that’s good, and letting things flow from there would be a big key,” Holmes said. “That’s one thing that can make this so successful. It’s trusting my sinker and not feeling that I have to be so perfect with it. I can let my best pitch work and let the defense work. That’ll be a huge thing.”
