The Clay Holmes conclusion the NY Mets can come to

Stop me when you’ve heard this before. Clay Holmes toed the rubber for the New York Mets and left after 4 innings. Exiting in the fifth against the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday, it was a familiar departure for Holmes whose biggest fail this year has been going deep into games. The contagion that struck all of the veterans other than David Peterson remains one of the biggest issues with the ball club. With the bullpen looking more shaky than stellar, it’s going to be a tough final two and a half weeks to get through the last battles of the regular season.

The Holmes experiment hasn’t been an outright disaster. Making 29 starts and posting a 3.75 ERA is acceptable under different circumstances. If only the Mets had a rotation where Holmes is their number five with everyone else firing on all cylinders, maybe we wouldn’t clench whenever he is the starter.

The Mets had their chance to move him to the bullpen earlier this year. They never did. Instead, the choice was to put their full faith in him as a starting pitcher. It should open their eyes to a final conclusion.

The Mets can’t plan on Clay Holmes ever being a reliable starter for a full season

Sure. Maybe Holmes has a full offseason to recuperate and go into the 2026 season feeling his best. Now 151 innings deep, the toll on his body is going to be far greater than anything he felt after a season as a reliever. Satisfactory as a 4+ inning pitcher, the inability to get through 5 full frames poses a problem for a Mets club that will continually deploy a six-man rotation of some kind while Kodai Senga is on the team, too. Three extra outs needed from the bullpen on a regular basis is a grind. We saw the impact on players like Huascar Brazoban and Max Kranick. The multi-inning weapons faltered after a while and eventually landed on the IL.

Amazingly healthy this year, possibly because the Mets haven’t pushed him to get out of some of the same jams he created, Holmes has continued to make it obvious he has a low ceiling. Four serviceable innings isn’t enough. Starting pitchers need to do more.

So what do the Mets do about Clay Holmes?

It’s too late for anything now. They need to just run him out. Thanks to Sean Manaea, he isn’t the weakest link. But his stay in Queens extends beyond just this year and while the plan remains the same for him at the moment, there should be some thought about what lies ahead. Starter? Reliever? A hybrid of the two? It really depends on health and how the offseason shapes up.

If the role remains unchanged, preparing a parachute landing for Holmes feels necessary. The Mets didn’t seem to actually plan for Nolan McLean or Jonah Tong to reach the majors as quickly as they did. Brandon Sproat might have been here if he started off the year strong. Had they done this sooner, it might have made a major difference for the team in the standings. Their issues go beyond one starting pitcher. He should be a rotation backup plan, nothing more.

It didn’t seem like the Mets ever had any serious intentions of bailing on their Holmes experiment. Next year, Holmes should have to earn his rotation spot just to begin the season. Even then, have an eject button installed.