Clay Holmes Introduced, Wants to Throw 160 Innings in 2025

Clay Holmes, the newest addition to the New York Mets rotation, gave his introductory press conference Tuesday.

It had been reported even before the signing that the former All-Star Yankee reliever was tied to the Mets, with the possibility of joining the team as a starter. Holmes stated that this switch has long been something he wanted.

“It’s something that I’ve always kind of had in the back of my mind throughout my career,” Holmes said, as he delved into potential offers in the past to go overseas to start full-time. “Even throughout this year, in my bullpens I was throwing a change-up, throwing a four-seam (fastball), just to keep things fun and light.”

Early in the offseason Holmes said a few teams (the Yankees not incuded) had an interest in stretching him out this year, and he chose to follow up on that, wanting to make sure he didn’t finish his career with any regrets.

“I didn’t want to look back at the end of my career and say, ‘Man, what could have come from that?’ and I think it was something that deep down I had a passion for and excited me,” Holmes said. “I get to stay here in New York and be with the Mets to pursue this opportunity. I don’t know if there’s a better place so I’m super excited to be here.”

A lot has been made about the Mets’ new pitching lab and the additional capital that the team has put into pitcher-performance under owner Steve Cohen. Holmes highlighted that as a main reason for his decision.

“The resources they have here and who (pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and new assisstant pitching coach Desi Druschel) are as coaches and things they’ve done with starting pitchers, I saw that there was a real fit,” Holmes said.

Holmes has never thrown over 75 innings in a season, even including the playoffs, so a major difficulty of this transistion is the inevitable workload surge that will occur this season. Nevertheless, Holmes believes in the team’s ability to continuously monitor him and keep him healthy for a full season.

“It’s hard to put arbitrary numbers on things,” Holmes said, “But my intention going in is to throw 160 innings, I want to throw as many innings as I can.”

Holmes isn’t making the crosstown journey alone. Along with him (and Druschel) comes Juan Soto and his newly-signed 15-year, $765 million deal. Suffice it to say Holmes is “super pumped” that Soto will also be donning the blue and orange.

“I got to see a full year of what he’s capable of, and it’s incredible,” Holmes said, “Deep down, I can’t lie, I obviously made my decision because I think it’s the best place, but hopefully I was like, ‘maybe Juan sees this and sees that the water is fine and will follow me over here.'”

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