So much hope. So much disappointment.
Overview
- Rating: 1.86
- 2024 stats: 25 G, 21 GS, 117.0 IP, 6.23 ERA, 4.48 FIP, 1.650 WHIP, -1.4 bWAR
- Date of birth: August 18, 1997 (age 26 season)
- 2024 earnings: $25 million
- 2025 status: Exercised player option, $22.5 million
2024 review
If you’d said at the beginning of last offseason that Jordan Montgomery would be a D-back in 2024, you’d have been laughed at. After all, he was ranked the #6 free-agent, MLB Trade Rumors projecting Jordan to get a six-year deal worth $150 million, far too rich for Arizona. But the calendar flipped, 2023 becoming 2024, and January becoming February; still, nobody had signed Montgomery. Pitchers and catchers reported, and he remained available. Finally, with just a couple of days left before Opening Day, the shocking news broke: the Diamondbacks had signed Montgomery, to a one-year deal worth $25 million, with a player option for 2025, whose value depended on the number of starts made.
And there was much rejoicing across the SnakePit. Understandable, since the pitcher was coming off a four-win season, won a World Series ring with the Rangers after being dealt to them, and as noted, was not expected to be one of us. At the time, this looked very much like a one and done deal, with the player option not being relevant. Nik summed up the general consensus: “Monty is here for a year to win another ring, work with our staff, Strom in particular, raise his stock price and go for the big contract again next year.” He was a hired gun – and we were perfectly fine with that, adding significantly to the team’s starting pitching, without costing anything except Ken’s money.
Given the lateness of the signing, on March 26, there was no way Montgomery would be ready to pitch on Opening Day. He instead made two starts for the Aces and although they didn’t go brilliantly (nine ER on 12 hits and 5 walks in 7.2 innings), rust seemed inevitable. His first outing as a D-back was perfectly solid, picking up the win in San Francisco, for six innings of one-run ball. But after a quality start in St. Louis, the wheels quickly fell off Montgomery. Over six May starts he had a 7.18 ERA, and June was worse still, a 7.59 ERA. That culminated in a June 27th outing at Chase Field against the Twins, where he allowed eight runs on ten hits, without making it through the third inning.
A few days later he was placed on the Injured List with right knee inflammation. He reportedly injured it during a bullpen session, though cynics among you may wonder about that. He missed closed to a month and, while he won his return outing in Kansas City, you’d be hard pushed to see an improvement. Little more than a month later, he was moved to the Arizona bullpen. He didn’t like it, according to manager Torey Lovullo, but who would? Jordan made the right sounds: “I want to help the team any way I can. We’re in a pennant race, and if I can be the long man and maybe turn myself into a leverage arm, get us some big outs and be a difference maker that way, then that’s just what I’ll do this year.”
The results were mixed, though Jordan did notch his first career save pitching three scoreless innings in a blowout win against his previous team, the Texas Rangers. He returned to the Arizona rotation in September, after Ryne Nelson was lost to injury. But the results were little if any better, and Montgomery ended the season with an ERA of 6.23. That was the highest by a D-back with 20+ starts in a season since 2005, when Russ Ortiz reached 6.89 under similar, “Too expensive to fail” circumstances. Given the price, and the sub-replacement level performance, there’s a case to be made for Montgomery having the worst single-year in franchise history.
2025 outlook
The player option nobody thought relevant in March, suddenly came into play, and it was reported last week that Montgomery had, no surprise, chosen to exercise it. He disregarded comments by Ken Kendrick, who took responsibility for the signing, calling it “a horrible decision to have invested that money in a guy that performed as poorly as he did.” Based on the 21 starts, the team will pay Jordan $22.5 million next year, but there is a non-zero chance he may be traded (Ben will be looking at potential partners later today, I believe). Jim Bowden of The Athletic recently predicted Jordan will be dealt to the Braves in exchange for a couple of prospects, the D-backs picking up half of the amount due to the player.
The Diamondbacks find themselves in a bit of an awkward position. If they hold on to the player, and his performance doesn’t improve, he’ll basically be untradeable, and the team will be left to eat $22.5m. But few things would suck harder than dealing him elsewhere before the season, and Jordan recovering his 2023 form for someone else, while we pay an eight-figure sum for the privilege of watching that. The key question is probably the degree to which the team thinks Montgomery will bounce back. Perhaps the most obvious sign of hope is his FIP, which was 1.75 runs better than his ERA. Of 126 pitchers with 100+ IP last year, no-one else had a gap bigger than +1.20. His BABIP of .347 was also highest in MLB.
Was this just bad luck then? Hard to be sure. His Baseball Savant page is sending me mixed messages. His hard-hit rate is definitely worse than average, but his barrel rate was good, and his chase percentage elite, in the top 10%. Which, in particular, makes it odd that his strikeout rate was was so poor: the bottom four percent, with only 6.4 K’s per nine innings. That ranking was down from 34% last year, and an increase in walks didn’t help. Getting those two figures going in the right direction next season is going to be a big help, if Jordan wants to re-establish himself as a leading free-agent option for when he hits the market again next off-season.
On the other hand, there’s a case to be made that the team already has five good starting pitchers: Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez, Brandon Pfaadt and Ryne Nelson. Even if the team has to pay half of what Montgomery is owed, that would free up around $11 million in additional resources. A few days ago, Jack estimated the team had about $28 million to spend, with the need to replace 1,753 mostly quality plate-appearances from the likes of Christian Walker, Joc Pederson, etc. You could argue doing so is a bigger priority than starting pitching depth, and bumping that budgetary figure up to almost $40 million would certainly help address it.
Figuring out what to do in this situation is going to be one of the most interesting topics to follow this winter. GM Mike Hazen and Lovullo are saying positive things so far. For example, Lovullo stated, “I know there’s a better version of Jordan Montgomery that’s out there. He’s going to accept the responsibility to what it’s going to take for him to come into spring training next year and be one of our five.” Admittedly, I’d expect them to say exactly the same things if they were looking to trade Montgomery: you don’t sell a car by telling people how badly it runs. But I just hope Ken Kendrick had learned his lesson, and sticks to writing the necessary checks going forward, rather than making “helpful” suggestions to Hazen!