The Mets officially announced on Monday that they have signed former Yankees reliever Clay Holmes to a three-year contract worth $38 million. As first reported, the deal has a player opt-out after the second year.

Holmes finished the 2024 season with a solid 3.14 ERA (1.30 WHIP) in 63 innings and had a career-high 30 saves, but he also blew 13 save opportunities and lost his closer's role late in the season.

The 31-year-old doesn't figure to be the closer during his time in Queens with that crown still belonging to Edwin Diaz. In fact, the Mets don't intend on using Holmes as a reliever at all, instead planning on converting him to a starting pitcher.

"We’re gonna do everything that we can in our power to make sure we stretch him out to be a starter," said manager Carlos Mendoza on an appearance of Mets Hot Stove on Monday. "I’ve been in contact with Jeremy Hefner, our pitching coach, Desi Druschel, the guy that we just hired from the Yankees to assist our pitching group with [bullpen coach Jose] Rosado and all the guys there from that department, but we do feel pretty good about Clay Holmes facing a lineup not only one time through the order, two times through the order, but hopefully three times through the order."

The skipper continued with how New York plans to help Holmes make the switch from reliever to starting pitcher.

"We’re gonna have to play around with his repertoire, especially against some left-handed hitters," Mendoza said. "We all know about his power sinker and we know the slider and how effective it could be against some of these righties, but to be able to navigate a lineup – especially some of these teams that are gonna be loading up some lefties – he’s gonna have to play around and we do feel comfortable with maybe a little bit of a changeup, maybe a four-seam, a little bit shorter slider or a cutter.

In seven seasons -- all as a reliever (except for his first season in 2018 with the Pittsburgh Pirates when he made four starts) -- the right-hander is 24-22 with a 3.71 ERA (1.30 WHIP). Since getting traded to the Yanks during the 2021 season, Holmes was converted to a closer and really took off, pitching to a 2.69 ERA (1.11 WHIP) across 217.2 innings.

Regardless, he will now likely join Kodai Senga, David Peterson and recently signed Frankie Montas in the starting rotation for 2025.

"The one thing with Clay, he works really hard, he takes the baseball," Mendoza said. "This is a professional and this is a guy that’s accountable. He’s been in New York, he knows what it takes, he’s had success and he’s had some struggles and when he was going through some rough stretches he was the first guy out there in front of his locker answering questions and that says a lot about the makeup of this guy and that’s what we want. We want to continue to bring not only really good players, but really good people."

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