Ranking the available free agent relief pitchers for the Angels heading into 2025

2. Clay Holmes

Holmes is exactly the type of reliever the Angels could use--a set-up man who can close when Joyce is unavailable. He had 54 saves the past two seasons with the Yankees before being moved out of the full-time closer role. His K% was above average, but ideally you want a back-end arm to be in the highest tier of strikeouts. Holmes' K% was in the 67th percentile, which is passable for sure. His calling card is his ability to get groundballs, as his 64.6% groundball% was in the 100th percentile.

Holmes is absolutely filthy. He has a turbo sinker that averaged 96.6mph. He compliments his sinker with an extremely depthy, upper-80s slider, and a gigantic low-80s sweeper that has tremendous depth and horizontal movement.

Holmes will be 32-years-old on Opening Day, and should receive more years on his contract than many of his other contemporaries on the market. Perhaps the Angels are too scarred by Stephenson, Loup, and Tepera to go all-in on Holmes, but he is a durable option who could add experience and high velocity into a bullpen that desperately needs it.