Clay Holmes is one of the top bullpen arms in free agency. While Holmes is surely drawing interest in his typical relief role, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that a few clubs are considering the right-hander as a candidate for a move to the rotation. According to Sherman, the Mets are among the teams looking into Holmes as a potential starter.
The bullpen-to-rotation move has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. The Rays have found success with rotation conversions for the likes of Drew Rasmussen, Jeffrey Springs and Zack Littell. The Yankees started to stretch Michael King out into rotation work at the end of the 2023 season. King dominated in that role, centered the Padres’ trade return for Juan Soto, and turned in an excellent first full season as a starter.
Teams have been especially willing to stretch free agent signees back into rotation work. San Diego hit on their decision to sign Seth Lugo as a starter going into 2023. One year later, Lugo finished second in Cy Young balloting for the Royals. The Braves and Giants took this path with Reynaldo López and Jordan Hicks, respectively, last winter. Hicks tailed off in the second half, but López turned in a 1.99 earned run average over 25 starts for Atlanta (albeit with a pair of late-season injured list stints). The White Sox developed Garrett Crochet from a talented reliever with workload concerns to a top-of-the-rotation arm who should net them a huge trade return this offseason. The Angels found some success with a rotation move for sinkerballer José Soriano.
Given the number of hits just within the past three to four years, it’s little surprise teams are interested in continuing the experiment. Jeff Hoffman, the top righty reliever of the free agent class, has already gotten attention as a starter. There’s risk in taking a successful pitcher out of the role in which he’s most comfortable, but the upside of a successful rotation move is tremendous. Even if the pitcher flames out as a starter, as A.J. Puk did with the Marlins this year, there’s a decent chance he could return to the ’pen without too much issue.
Holmes, who turns 32 on Opening Day, has essentially no major league experience as a starting pitcher. He has made four MLB starts, all of which came as a rookie with the Pirates in 2018. That’s a minuscule sample from six years ago, so there’s little to be gleaned from it, but Holmes struggled in that look (15 innings of 7.80 ERA ball with 13…
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