Injured Mets Starter Named Best Fit For NL Central Contender

The New York Mets aren’t having a good season. Despite winning four of its last five games, the team has been one of the worst in Major League Baseball and are in position to have a massive fire sale by the Aug. 3 trade deadline.

The brand of baseball the Mets have played this season is hard to stomach for fans, and even though the team doesn’t have the worst record, many fans would tell you their team is worse than the teams below them in the standings.

Pretty much all of the moves president of baseball operations David Stearns made this offseason to overcome last season’s shortcomings and emphasize run prevention haven’t panned out. A lot of those players may be on their way out in the coming weeks, like right-handed starter Freddy Peralta, who was acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers during the winter and hasn’t lived up to expectations.

He’s the most notable Met that is all but guaranteed to be dealt to a contender seeking starting pitching help, but there’s another Mets starting pitcher that may have been forgotten about because he’s been out of action since mid-May that could be on the move as well.

Right-hander Clay Holmes was having a terrific season before a comebacker fractured his right fibula. He is 4-4 with a 2.39 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 45 strikeouts to 18 walks through nine starts (52.2 innings). Holmes’ 7.7 K/9 isn’t great, but he’s a groundball pitcher that thrives using his sinker to get guys out.

Holmes would be a useful arm to have when he comes back, and he’s expected to begin a rehab assignment later this month.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan put together each contender’s weaknesses, best match and dream match for the trade deadline and wrote that Holmes would be the best match for the Milwaukee Brewers, which could use more rotational depth.

Passan mentioned that the Brewers are much like the Los Angeles Dodgers but without all the money – a great team that has a great analytics team and gets the best out of players. Typically, Milwaukee doesn’t get crazy at the trade deadline but ever so often will go out and make a huge pickup; Passan cited getting CC Sabathia in 2008 was the best example of this.

The Brewers have had an incredible season thus far and may need a little extra help to finally get over the hump this season. If they don’t swing big for Minnesota Twins righty Joe Ryan, who was dubbed Milwaukee’s dream match, Holmes would be a viable option.

“Is now finally the time again?” Passan wrote Thursday in regards to acting like a big-market franchise. “If so, Holmes, returning from a broken right leg, would be more than they did last deadline, when their acquisitions were a reliever who threw 9.2 innings before getting hurt, a backup catcher and a reserve outfielder. Ryan, though, would offer the sort of rotation stability they could use with Brandon Woodruff and Logan Henderson hurt.”

Holmes has a player option for 2027 while Ryan has a mutual option for 2027, making Ryan more likely to stick around an extra year, but the more expensive trade piece.