Clay Holmes Is Beating His Underlying Numbers, Though the Mets Should Be Wary of Regression

Even though it’s very early in the year and Clay Holmes has only made five starts, if you leave out the one game he pitched in 2020, he’s currently sporting his lowest ERA of his career. You’d think that a guy with a 2.10 ERA and 1.03 WHIP would be dominant, but has Holmes really been as good as his surface numbers suggest?

Holmes’ underlying data suggests that he’s been outperforming his expected stats, hence his 4.28 FIP and 4.35 SIERA. Even his expected earned run average is double his ERA, sitting at 4.20. There are a couple of different factors that are playing into Holmes’ situation.

So far through 30 innings of work, Holmes has only struck out 19 batters, which is a 15.8% clip. It’s a below-average mark putting him in the 18th percentile. He hasn’t allowed an unhealthy amount of walks, but he is currently giving out free passes at a near-league-average 8.3% rate, good for the 59th percentile among all qualified pitchers.

He’s done a respectable job of keeping balls in the yard, only giving up three home runs thus far. That equals a 0.9 HR/9 IP ratio, which is more than workable; him allowing home runs at a league-average clip isn’t what’s really blowing up his FIP and SIERA.

Clay Holmes' Change of Role and Results Since Joining Mets

Since Holmes joined the Mets last season, his FIP sits at 4.17, whereas it had previously been in the threes and twos dating back to the 2021 season with the Yankees. This is as a result of him striking out less batters causing his FIP to rise, while maintaining around the same walk rate. Since his early campaigns in Pittsburgh, each year since 2021 he’s been walking around 8% of batters.

Holmes has never lacked the ability to compensate for that with strikeouts. He averaged around a 26% strikeout rate between 2021 and 2024, while with the Pirates and Yankees. During this stretch of four seasons, his FIP sat between 2.65 (his best) and 3.28 (his worst).

Remember that Holmes was primarily a reliever his whole career until joining the Mets. When he worked out of the bullpen, he worked with three pitches; a sinker, slider, and sweeper. Since converting to a starter, he’s worked with at least five different pitches each of the last two seasons, including a cutter that's getting bashed to the tune of a .500 slugging percentage.

This is the difficult of converting relievers. They often don't have deep-enough arsenals to power past lineups multiple times through. Better command will go a long way, but Holmes' underlying numbers will remain terrifying until and unless he can find a mix of more than two or three pitches that works.