Can Clay Holmes Turn It Around?

Over the past three seasons, Clay Holmes has been a fixture in the back of the bullpen for the New York Yankees. With a pitch arsenal headlined by a prominent sinker-slider combination, Holmes has accumulated 70 saves as the Yankees closer since taking over the role at the start of the 2022 season. Over the past season, however, Holmes has run into some struggles, with 10 blown saves and the media and the Yankees fanbase calling for Holmes to be removed from the closer role. Manager Aaron Boone initially indicated that the Yankees would be sticking with Holmes as closer for the remainder of the season, however, he has more recently become open to the idea of mix-and-matching during late-inning situations. This article will take a deeper dive into Clay Holmes’s pitch arsenal and attempt to determine whether Holmes has regressed this season and needs an adjustment to get back on track, or if Holmes’s blown save total is simply the result of bad batted ball luck he has experienced this season.

 

Overview

Since being acquired by the Yankees in a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates at the 2021 trade deadline, Holmes has been a fixture in the Yankees bullpen for the past three seasons, becoming the Yankees closer after Aroldis Chapman went on the injured list early in the 2022 season. Combining a high ground ball rate with an above-average strikeout and an ability to limit walks, Holmes’s surface-level stats indicate that he has seen consistent production over the past three seasons, with his ERA and FIP remaining relatively constant over this span. While his ground ball rate has declined from the outstanding 75.8% ground ball rate he produced in 2022, metrics such as K-BB% and FIP indicate that he should be having the best season of his Yankees career. Despite this, the 10 blown saves that Holmes has allowed this season is by far the most he has allowed during his tenure as Yankees closer, which leads to the question, why has Holmes blown so many saves this season?

 

Pitch Arsenal

Taking a look at his pitch arsenal, Holmes primarily utilizes three pitches: a sinker, a slider, and a sweeper. Holmes utilizes all three pitches to both right and left-handed hitters, however, he more frequently uses the slider and sweeper against right-handed hitters. In my opinion, both of Holmes’s sliders are the best pitches in his arsenal, with his gyro slider possessing plus velocity (87.1 MPH) and generating plenty of whiffs (44.6% whiff rate), while his sweeper gives opposing hitters trouble due to its unexpected movement profile from an over-the-top delivery. Pitch quality models agree with this analysis, with the models agreeing that Holmes’s overall “stuff” is above average, with his sliders grading out as his best pitch. (Please note that FanGraphs’s Stuff+ does not differentiate between sliders and sweepers).

While Holmes’s two sliders are the “best” pitches in his arsenal, the pitch he is perhaps most known for is his sinker. Utilizing the offering 79.8% of the time in 2022, Holmes’s sinker was the pitch that got him on the map when he first took over the closer role, as the pitch’s combination of fastball-like velocity and changeup-like vertical movement gave many hitters difficulty at making solid contact against the pitch. This sinker-slider combination provides Holmes with an effective arsenal to utilize against right-handed hitters, as all of these pitches move away from the opposing hitter’s barrel, resulting in either swing-and-miss or weak contact. Over the past two seasons, however, hitters have made adjustments to the unique movement profile of Holmes’s sinker (.266 wOBA in 2022 vs. .398 wOBA in 2024), which has likely contributed to the reduced usage of the pitch and a decrease in Holmes’s overall ground ball rate from his 2022 peak.

Upon first glance at his pitch arsenal, it appears that Holmes has likely run into an issue with his platoon splits throughout his career. When thrown to opposite-handed hitters, the movement of a sinker takes the pitch into the opposing hitter’s barrel and the movement of a sweeper is easier for a left-handed hitter to see, often resulting in harder contact, which makes both of these pitches more effective to use against same-handed hitters.

As shown by the table above, Holmes has run into issues with his platoon splits this season, particularly as it relates to strikeouts. Against right-handed hitters, Holmes is producing a 33.3% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk rate, and 26.9% K-BB, while against left-handed hitters, Holmes is producing a 20.7% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and a 13.5% K-BB. Yes, Holmes is a reliever and should be expected to have a bigger difference in his platoon splits than a starting pitcher, however, as a closer this can become a liability when facing left-handed hitters, as Holmes does not have a pitch in his arsenal to retire them effectively.

As shown by the table above, Holmes’s ability to generate swing-and-miss dramatically decreases against left-handed hitters, particularly on his slider. In addition, Holmes relies heavily on his sinker when facing left-handed hitters, utilizing the pitch 62.9% of the time against opposite-handed hitters. This high usage rate causes left-handed hitters to sit on the sinker when facing Holmes, as evident by his blown save on July 5th due to Masataka Yoshida’s game-tying home run. While peripheral stats indicate that he has been successful against right-handed hitters this season, Holmes needs to make an adjustment against left-handed hitters (such as adding a platoon-neutral offering such as a cutter or altering his pitch mix) to improve his overall results.

 

Bad Batted Ball Luck?

While Holmes has experienced difficulty this season in facing left-handed hitters, another hypothesis that can be posited to explain his struggles this season is that he has been victim to bad “batted ball luck”. While Holmes is effective at generating ground balls (against both-handedness hitters) when not generating swing-and-miss, he has to rely on his defense to make plays, which could result in blown saves that should be attributed more toward bad defense than pitcher production.

As shown by the table above, this phenomenon becomes clear when adding batting average on balls in play (BABIP) alongside Holmes’s surface-level statistics. While allowing a BABIP slightly over .300 is not uncommon for a pitcher who allows a lot of ground balls like Holmes, due to more ground balls resulting in base hits than fly balls (perhaps suggesting that Holmes benefited from “positive luck” in 2022), running a .350 BABIP is quite high and speaks to the general volatility that is present in production from relief pitchers. While starting pitchers pitch many innings and throw many pitches over the course of the season, allowing more time for their surface-level statistics to align with their peripherals, relievers do not benefit from such a large sample size, and as a result, factors out of their control can result in large changes in their surface-level production.

While I am sure this is an answer that many Yankees fans will not be happy to hear, the main contributor to Holmes’s blown save total this season has likely been bad “batted ball luck”. There have been a couple of incidents this season, specifically the infamous blown save on July 14th against Baltimore, where defensive miscues directly led to a loss independent of Holmes’s pitching performance. While blown saves are certainly not ideal results, as they typically result in a loss, factors outside of a pitcher’s control also influence whether or not a save is blown and should not be used as a sole determinator of whether a closer is suitable for the role or not. Given the improvements that Holmes has displayed this season in terms of K-BB% and FIP, I believe that bad “batted ball luck”, as evidenced by his .350 BABIP, is likely the main contributor to his perceived late-inning struggles this season.

 

Moving Forward

The main question moving forward for the New York Yankees is whether or not Clay Holmes should remain their closer for the rest of the season. While Aaron Boone initially was steadfast in his defense of Holmes remaining as the closer, he has indicated recently that it is possible that Holmes could be used in other situations moving forward. This begs the question, who are the other options that the Yankees have to fill the closer role?

Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver stand as two likely candidates who are currently in the Yankees bullpen and could move into the closer role for the remainder of the season. While Kahnle also generates ground balls at a high rate, he has a much lower K-BB% than Holmes currently has. While Weaver has an identical K-BB% to Holmes, he has a much lower ground ball rate, and PLV indicates that his arsenal consists of lower quality “stuff” than Holmes.

I find Luis Gil to be an interesting option to move from the starting rotation to the closer role, as I believe that his “stuff” would likely play up if he is asked to pitch one inning at a time, as opposed to multiple inning outings as a starter. Given Gil’s injury track record, it appears to be an effective strategy to get his innings total under control as well, however, Gil recently left an outing due to lower back tightness and has been placed on the 15-day injured list. It will be interesting to see how this affects Gil’s availability for the remainder of the season.

Moving Clarke Schmidt to the closer role upon return from the injured list would be an intriguing idea, as Schmidt has the highest strikeout rate and highest PLV among the closer candidates listed above. Having been on the injured list since May 30th due to a right lat strain, placing Schmidt in the closer role could be an interesting strategy to limit Schmidt’s innings for the remainder of the season, while also reinforcing the back of the bullpen.

In conclusion, while Clay Holmes’s blown save total this season has raised concerns, I believe that his struggles this season are more likely a result of bad luck than a significant decline in performance. While Holmes could benefit from an improved approach and better performance against left-handed hitters, his overall “stuff” and ground ball tendencies likely make him the Yankee’s best option for the closer role. Perhaps the best strategy would be to keep Holmes as the closer when facing an upcoming lineup of right-handed hitters while utilizing a reliever such as Kahnle (whose primary offering is a platoon-neutral changeup) when facing an upcoming lineup of left-handed hitters. With some positive batted ball regression hopefully on the horizon, Clay Holmes can turn his season around and reclaim his title as one of the best closers in all of Major League Baseball.