Clay Holmes

Clayton Walter Holmes

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 4", Weight 225 lb.
• High School Slocomb (AL) High School
• Debut April 6, 2018

• Born March 27, 1993 in Dothan, AL USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Clayton Holmes was drafted in the 9th round in the 2011 amateur draft.

With a fastball timed as high as 93 mph in high school, Holmes was 11-5 with 126 K in 89 IP as a junior and 6-2 with a 2.06 ERA and 84 K in 54 1/3 IP as a senior. He was rated as the #140 prospect in the country by Baseball America, a late 4th-round pick. He fell to the 9th round due to a commitment to Auburn University. The Pittsburgh Pirates selected him and signed him right before the signing deadline, with a bonus of $1.2 million. It was easily a record for a 9th-round pick, breaking Jason Middlebrook's $750,000 mark from 1996. The scout was Darren Mazeroski. He made his pro debut with the 2012 State College Spikes; facing the Mahoning Valley Scrappers on June 22, he tossed five shutout innings (3 hits, one walk, 5 strikeouts) to get the win.

He made his major league debut with the Pirates early in the 2018 season, being called up when Joe Musgrove went on the disabled list (he had been the 26th man for a doubleheader in the first series of the year). In his first game, he gave up 1 run in 2 innings of relief in a 14-3 win against the Cincinnati Reds on April 6th. He pitched 11 times for the Pirates that year, including 4 starts, going 1-3, 6.84. In 2019, he was strictly a reliever in his 35 outings for the Pirates, going 1-2, 5.58. He struggled with his control, walking 36 batters in 50 innings, but did strike out 56. In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he made just one appearance with the Bucs, spending the bulk of the year at their alternate training site, and did not allow a run on 2 hits in 1 1/3 inning. However, he was a regular member of the team's bullpen in 2021. Results were slightly better, but overall not very different than his performance in his first couple of seasons: in 44 games, his ERA was 4.93, with a record of 3-2, 44 Ks and 23 walks in 42 innings. The Pirates were a last-place team once again and looking to extract any value they could from players they had no intention of keeping in the longer run. On July 26th, one day after trading 2B Adam Frazier, they sent Clay to the New York Yankees in return for two minor leagues, IFs Diego Castillo and Hoy Park. He was outstanding after the trade, going 5-1, 1.61 in 25 games and adding 2 scoreless inning in the yankees' loss to the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card Game.

In 2022, Clay was promoted to a front-line role due to injuries to Aroldis Chapman and Jonathan Loaisiga. He gave up a run in his first outing of the season, against Boston on April 8th, but then went 29 straight games without allowing a run, totalling 31 1/3 innings. During that stretch, he was promoted from set-up man to closer when Chapman went down with an injury in mid-May. By June 15th, he had tallied 11 saves and his ERA was a minuscule 0.29. The scoreless streak finally ended on June 20th, when he relieved Gerrit Cole in the 8th inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Rays with one out, a runner on first base, and New York holding a 2-0 lead. He gave up a double, a ground out and a single to tie the score before completing the inning. He could have been credited with the win as the Yankees then score twice in the top of the 9th, but the official scorer used his discretion to credit the win instead to Wandy Peralta, who took care of the bottom of the 9th. He was named to the All-Star team for the first time and finished the year at 7-4, 2.54 in 62 games, with 20 saves. He was not scored upon in the postseason, appearing in four games against the Cleveland Guardians in the Division Series and one more in the ALCS against the Houston Astros. He went a total of 6 innings, allowing just 2 hits and 2 walks and striking ou7.

Holmes was back as the Yankees' closer in 2023 and had another good season, even if the team disappointed, finishing in 4th place in the AL East. In 66 games, he went 4-4, 2.86 and saved another 24 games while striking out 71 batters in 63 innings. In 2024, he continued to excel in the first half, when his ERA was 2.77 and he saved 21 games in 40 appearances. That earned him a second All-Star nominations, but maybe because he had been used more than ever before in the first half, he faded down the stretch, only picking up 9 more saves the rest of the way with a 3.75 ERA in 27 games. He lost the closer's job in September, when he was charged with 3 blown saves and did not pick up his 30th and final save until game #162 - the last of the season - on September 29th, saving a 6-4 win over his former team, the Pirates. In the postseason, it was Luke Weaver who was the closer, but by necessity he got to pitch in a number of close games. He did very well in the Division Series against the Kansas City Royals pitching 5 scoreless innings in 4 games and getting credit for the win in Game 1 on October 5th. He got another win in Game 2 of the ALCS against Cleveland and by then had put together a string of six consecutive scoreless appearances in the seven games the Yankees had played, but he then gave up runs in his next two outings of the series, and was charged with a 2-1 loss in Game 3 on October 17th when he gave up a two-run homer to David Fry in the 10th inning of a 7-5 loss. By then he was suffering from overuse, but manager Aaron Boone had few other reliable options, apart from Weaver who was also getting over-extended. He continued to be a workhorse in the World Series, appearing in all five games as the Yankees were defeated by the Los Angeles Dodgers. He received credit for his team's sole win, in Game 4 on October 29th, when he pitched 1 1/3 hitless and scoreless frames in an 11-4 victory, and overall gave up just 1 hit in 4 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out 6 batters. In other words, he was as good as ever.

He became a free agent following the World Series and, interestingly, stories came out that some teams were looking at him not as a closer, but as a potential starting pitcher (his last starting assignment had come with the Pirates back in his first season, 2018). It was one of these teams who won the bidding for his services as news came out on December 6th that he had reached an agreement with the New York Mets on a three-year contract worth $38 million.

Notable Achievements

• 2-time AL All-Star (2022 & 2024)
• 30 Saves Seasons: 1 (2024)

Further Reading

• Anthony DiComo: "Holmes heading crosstown to Mets -- to be a starter", mlb.com, December 6, 2024. [1]
• Anthony DiComo: "With passion for starting still alive, Holmes excited for Mets tenure", mlb.com, December 17, 2024. [2]
• Larry Fleisher (The Associated Press): "Clay Holmes rediscovers form a month after being pulled from closer's role as Yankees prep for ALCS", Yahoo! Sports, October 12, 2024. [3]

Related Sites

• Clay Holmes on mlb.com
• BR Minors page