Clay Holmes is entering unfamiliar territory this spring, swapping Tampa for Port St. Lucie and the reliever life for a starting role.
So one of the more intriguing members of the Mets rotation arrived at their spring training complex over a week ago — with pitchers and catchers not required to report until Feb. 12 — to get a head start on his buildup.
The former Yankees closer, who signed with the Mets on a three-year, $38 million contract last month, is encouraged by how the transition to becoming a starter has gone so far.
“It’s not like I’m having to necessarily change who I am as a pitcher,” Holmes said Saturday at the Mets fan fest at Citi Field. “It’s like, you do these things, and there’s a lot of belief there that a lot of good can come from being a starting pitcher.”
The Mets are banking on that being the case with Holmes part of a rotation that has plenty of upside — without a true ace — but a fair amount of risk as well.
They re-signed Sean Manaea, coming off a career year, to anchor the group and hope to have potential ace Kodai Senga coming back healthy after an injury-marred 2024.
Along with Holmes, the Mets signed Frankie Montas — another ex-Yankee who has been effective when not battling injuries — with David Peterson, Griffin Canning, Paul Blackburn and Tylor Megill also expected to be in the mix.
“We like not only the top of our rotation, but we like our depth,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Saturday.
Holmes, who has only started four games in the majors (all coming as a rookie in 2018 with the Pirates), is one of the arms that could help elevate the group.
And before he even threw a pitch in a Mets uniform, he received a nod of reassurance from Mendoza, who indicated that Holmes will stick in the rotation through good times and bad as long as he is holding up well physically.
“I know either way, I have to be my best self as a pitcher,” Holmes said. “That’s what I have to focus on. If I’m doing that, I’m going to be a good starting pitcher.”
In order for that to happen, Holmes spent his offseason adding to his arsenal.
While he was predominantly a sinker-slider pitcher with the Yankees — to mostly strong results, though he lost his job as the closer to Luke Weaver late in the 2024 season — opposing batters hit Holmes’ bread-and-butter sinker (.317) better than they ever had last season.
He threw the pitch 56.3 percent of the time and even more often (63.2 percent) against left-handed hitters, who hit .346 off it.
Because of that, Holmes knew he was probably going to have to expand his arsenal even if he remained a reliever.
He had tinkered with a changeup in the bullpen last year and added a four-seam fastball just in time for the playoffs, with encouraging results in a small sample size.
Now he has spent the offseason refining both pitches and likes what he has seen so far.
“The metrics on [the changeup] are probably better than my sinker right now, so I just need to see hitters swing at it, really,” Holmes said. “Add that in to lefties, I think it’s going to make the four-seam play even more.”