It's Elementary, the Mets Sign Holmes

[bmfc1]

That's Clay Holmes. $38M for 3 years w/a player opt-out after two. He will become a SP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Holmeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Holmes

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/holmecl01.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/holmecl01.shtml

Joel Sherman: "The Mets' plan is to try Holmes as a starting pitcher with the fallback being as a set-up man for Edwin Diaz."

Jon Heyman: "Great guy."

[Gwreck]

=bmfc1 post_id=180429 time=1733534457 user_id=73]He will become a SP.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

Not the Yankee I was hoping for.

[bmfc1]

Bob Alpacadaca wrote: Not the Yankee I was hoping for.

Hopefully, he's BFF's with Soto.

[Frayed Knot]

Interesting idea to convert a 32 y/o (by Opening Day) pitcher with seven seasons but just four career starts under his belt (all in 2018) to a starter.

Not that I'm against it (kind of like it actually) but you hope it doesn't crash and burn.

Had a rough September w/the Yanx, but some of that is likely just small sample size variances endemic to relievers.

Has had a good career to date particularly since getting out of Pittsburgh in 2021

[Centerfield]

I have no problem taking fliers for the back of the rotation. Especially ones that have a floor as a good setup man.



But at some point we're going to need a reliable arm in this rotation.



I came in hoping for Manaea and someone to slot above him. That ship seems to have sailed now.

[Lefty Specialist]

The Mets better have a 6-man rotation in case this doesn't work out.

[MFS62]

Unlike many relievers he has more than one or two quality pitches. From Yahoo Sports:

Holmes has three pitches that he uses with regularity: a sinker (used 56.3% of the time in 2024, per Baseball Savant), a slider (23%) and a sweeper (20.5%).

That could be the kind of arsenal to get his through a batting order more than once.

And if it doesn't work out, he would be a late inning asset (either setup or closer).

Nice move.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

The Post had this story three days ago.



https://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/2024/20241203_NYP_02.jpg>

[Fman99]

Ok, this is the second time in a week that they've thrown big money to someone to help fill out a rotation that made me scratch my head. No starts in six years.



Can we sign any good starters, you know, for funzos ?

[smg58]

If you think there's a good chance that the light bulb clicks on for at least one of Sproat/Tidwell/Hamel/Vasil in AAA, then this isn't that risky of a play. I'd feel really good about this if we weren't also taking a bigger gamble with Montas.

[MFS62]

And if he becomes another Seth Lugo, who thrived when converted to a starter, that would be good, too.

Later

[Edgy MD]

That really is the nut of the avocado. Lugo spent most of his Mets career punished for being good in the pen. He was more valuable for the Royals last season than anybody not named Lindor was for the Mets.



If they have the means to identify and poach and deploy the next Seth Lugo, underutilized in somebody else's bullpen, instead of being so risk-averse that he gets poached out of theirs, they'd be fools not to try.



If the fallback strategy is that he effectively fills a Clay Holmes-like role in their bullpen, that's a win too.