SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Ben Brown did not know Clay Holmes at all, and yet the veteran Mets pitcher’s name kept coming up in conversation. Specifically, the Cubs righty kept hearing over and over -- from multiple people – that he needed to track Holmes down when he headed home to the Nashville area over the offseason.
“It’s crazy,” Brown said with a laugh on a recent morning. “It’s almost unbelievable -- just the amount of people who told me to train with this guy who I had never met in my life. It was like, ‘You’ve got to go work out with Clay. You've got to work out with Clay.’”
The convenient option was to just train at a facility near his home, but all those voices were stuck in Brown’s mind. These were trusted people, and they all were repeating the same refrain. So, Brown opted for a little bit longer of a drive to Provero Performance and Rehab outside Nashville, found Holmes and introduced himself.
At the Mets’ complex in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Brown’s name was brought up to Holmes on Saturday morning.
“Is he throwing his sinker?” Holmes promptly asked MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo.
Soon, Holmes was looking up Brown’s statistics from this Spring Training on a cell phone, going over metrics on the sinker he helped the Cubs righty add during their winter’s worth of work together. At Salt River Fields on Saturday afternoon, the 26-year-old Brown logged four strong innings against the Rockies, featuring that new pitch 11 times as he continues to prepare for the season ahead.
Holmes noted that Brown was showing off arm-side run as high as 17 to 18 inches in bullpen sessions over the offseason. Entering his latest start, the Cubs righty was averaging 13.5 inches, but had maxed out at 18 inches, per Statcast. It has been the result of Brown heading into the offseason with a firm plan, combined with a willingness to try some new things.
"Ben's awesome,” Holmes said. “It was good to kind of get to know him.”
The Cubs have been building up Brown (six strikeouts and no walks in his 51-pitch outing on Saturday) as a starting pitcher this spring, but the big righty could very well make the Opening Day roster as a multi-inning reliever. He was in the rotation to begin last season, but some extreme highs and lows (6.30 ERA in 15 starts) warranted a move to the bullpen down the stretch.
When the season ended, Brown headed into manager Craig Counsell’s office with ideas. The righty knew his surface-level results over his 106 1/3 total innings showed he did better against righties than lefties, but Brown felt it was misleading. He had better strikeout and walk rates against lefties (28.8% and 6.5%) than righties (23.0% and 7.0%), so this felt like more of an execution issue.
Brown had already added a kick-change to his repertoire last season -- giving him a third pitch beyond his high-velocity four-seamer and signature knuckle-curve -- but he wanted to also try to develop a sinker.
“I give Ben credit,” Counsell said. “The day the season ended, he had a plan. And he wanted to accomplish it.”
At the time, Brown did not realize Holmes would be a part of the process.
Tyler Zombro, the Cubs’ vice president of pitching strategy, has a history with Tread Athletics and knew Holmes. He was one of the voices who served as a connection point between the two pitchers. Holmes had a unique path to success and stardom in the big leagues that could offer lessons for Brown. The veteran also has a reputation in the game as being a relentless worker, which would give Brown a challenge as he aimed to enter 2026 in great physical condition.
“He’s notorious for his offseason workouts and people not being able to hang with him,” Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “Ben hung with him the whole offseason.”
Brown called it a “freeing” experience to have such a simple setup for his winter training. Many mornings, it was just Holmes, himself and a catcher. They went through intense workouts. They would throw with Trackman and pore over the data. They would test pitch grips and discuss different ways to think about how to create movement.
“He actually got it in a pretty good place,” Holmes said. “I was excited this year to see what this sinker's got for him. When we left Nashville, I was pretty excited about it. So I'm curious how it's rolling. It's not my grip, but it's the one we kind of settled on for him that was working. He throws a little bit differently.”
Brown appreciated how invested Holmes -- someone who did not know the Cubs pitcher until just a few months ago -- became in his development.
“He’s really kind and gracious with his time,” Brown said. “I mean, he was helping me out so much -- mentally, physically, and probably even more on the mental side.”
MLB.com's Anthony DiComo also contributed reporting for this article.