The White Sox are doing homework on Clay Holmes. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported Sunday that special assistant Nick Hostetler will “keep tabs” on the Mets right-hander during his minor league rehab assignment, an item MLB Trade Rumors’ Mark Polishuk picked up in noting that Chicago’s rotation and bullpen figure to be its top target areas before the August 3 deadline.
The fit is easy to see. Holmes had a 2.39 ERA over 52 2/3 innings in his first nine starts this season before a line drive fractured his right fibula on May 15, and the Mets — now openly selling — have made him available. His rehab assignment hit a snag Saturday when his scheduled Brooklyn outing was rained out; per MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo, rival scouts who showed up instead missed a roughly 45-pitch live bullpen closed to Mets personnel. He is expected back in August, but probably not before the deadline passes.
The complication is Chicago’s own stated model. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal wrote last week that the White Sox “are willing to be relatively aggressive on players under club control, but are not inclined to overpay for rentals,” per a person briefed on their plans. Holmes is signed through 2027 on paper, but he is widely expected to opt out after this season, which makes him a rental in everything but name. Paying the Mets’ asking price for a pitcher who may make four or five regular-season starts in a White Sox uniform would cut against how this front office has operated all year.
Still, the first-place roster has an obvious opening for exactly this profile. Davis Martin and Sean Burke have carried the front of the rotation — Burke threw 6 2/3 scoreless in Toronto on Sunday — but the depth behind them is young and thin, and a one-game division lead over Cleveland leaves no margin for a September rotation crunch. Due diligence on Holmes costs nothing. Whether Chicago pays a real price for him is the question the next two weeks will answer.
For fantasy purposes, this is a situation to monitor rather than act on. Holmes is a stash candidate in deeper leagues wherever he lands, but his value depends entirely on health and destination — a move to a first-place team with a pennant race incentive to push him would be the bullish outcome.
