A's Signing Has Similar Skillset to New York Yankees Reliever

New Oakland A's reliever Michael Kelly is a sneaky option for some innings in 2024

The Oakland A's claimed right-handed reliever Michael Kelly off waivers this off-season from the Cleveland Guardians, and while the move was barely reported, the 31-year-old offers a similar skillset to New York Yankees reliever Clay Holmes. 

Holmes, 30, has been in the big leagues since 2018, originally with the Pittsburgh Pirates before being traded to the pinstripes midway through the 2021 season. He was an All Star in 2022 and has posted ERAs of 1.61, 2.54 and 2.86 with New York the past three seasons. He's even racked up 44 saves the past two years. 

Standing at 6-foot-5, Holmes offers four pitches. His most-used is a 96 mile per hour sinker that he tosses 69% of the time, followed by an 87.5 mph slider with 21% usage, an 84 mph sweeper at 9.5%, and finally a four-seamer that he used just 0.5% of the time that sits at 94 mph. 

By comparison, Kelly throws the same pitches, but in a different usage pattern and is listed at one inch shorter than the Yankees' righty. Kelly's mix with Cleveland last year had him using his sweeper the most, at 53%, while throwing it at 83.3 mph. His sweeper is right around a tick slower than Holmes'. The rest of his arsenal consists of a four-seamer at 95 mph that's used 24% of the time, an 88 mph slider 16.5% of the time, and his sinker, Holmes' most-used pitch, at 95 mph and just 6% usage. 

The movement on all of these pitches isn't the same between the two righties, which would account for the different usage patterns between relievers, with Holmes getting an additional 7.2 inches of vertical movement on his sinker as an example. 

Yet, Kelly's sweeper has some of the most movement in baseball. Among pitchers that threw at least 100 sweepers, Kelly ranks 16th in vertical movement vs. average at 2.9 inches, and third in horizontal movement with 4.1 inches. While Holmes threw just 98 sweepers in 2023, his vertical movement (2.8 inches) and horizontal movement (3.1 inches) are about as close to Kelly's as any pitcher in baseball. 

Of his 98 sweepers that were thrown, batters went just 2-for-26 against Holmes, good for a .077 batting average and a .050 expected batting average. Kelly threw a few more, 145 to be exact, and hitters batted .156 off his sweeper. The difference is presumably because of the usage and what other offerings surround that sweeper. Holmes has an excellent sinker and slider combo and the sweeper is his third offering. Kelly relies on his sweeper a bit more. 

While Kelly is 31 years old and doesn't quite have the experience that Holmes possesses, he could be a sneaky option to make the A's bullpen out of Spring Training and has a chance to become a late-inning option for the A's in 2024. He's already on the 40-man roster, so all he has to do now is impress the coaching staff to earn his opportunity. 

If he could get his sinker to approximate the one that Holmes throws, he could even become the team's closer.