The free agency dam might be breaking a bit. At least for starting pitchers, anyway.
Frankie Montas joined Yusei Kikuchi and Blake Snell in settling on a new team as he signed a two year, $34 million contract with the Mets late Sunday night. The contract has a player option for the second year.
The Mets have a lot of work to do with their rotation this offseason as 534 vacated innings in 2024 from Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, and Jose Quintana currently sit on the free agent market. Montas is their first stab at trying to replace some of that lost volume.
Here, I’m going to talk about who Montas is as a pitcher, what the Mets might see in him, and how the move impacts his outlook for fantasy baseball.
How Good is Frankie Montas?
This is a loaded question. His 4.84 ERA from last season would tell you, possibly not good at all. Things get even murkier when going back to his disastrous stint with the Yankees and eventual labrum tear that forced him to miss more than a calendar year between 2022 and 2023.
Really, he hasn’t put together a good year since 2021, his last full season with the Athletics, when he struck out 207 batters across 187 innings with a 3.37 ERA. Yet, Montas still has the foundation of a solid, mid-rotation arm.
His average fastball velocity bounced back to nearly 96 MPH and got faster as last season wore on.
Montas also still has a tremendous splitter. It had a 119 Stuff+ and 42.6% whiff rate last season as his go-to swing-and-miss pitch. That along with a plus slider, solid cutter, two-seam fastball, and four-seam fastball gives him a true five-pitch mix with multiple looks to show hitters from each side of the plate.
Ugly 2024 ERA aside, here’s a guy with above average velocity, a legitimate out-pitch, and a deep repertoire. That’s a solid pitcher.
How Good Can Frankie Montas Be?
This is where it gets fun for fantasy managers and Mets fans alike. Again, let’s look past that unsightly 4.84 ERA and try to figure out what the Mets’ plan will be for Montas.
He was traded from the Reds to the Brewers at the trade deadline last season and made some adjustments that helped his strikeout rate jump from 19.0% in Cincinnati to 28.7% with Milwaukee.
First, check out how much differently he sequenced his pitches against hitters from each side of the plate before and after the move. Top table is before, bottom is after.
The biggest differences here were way more two-seamers (I know it says ‘sinker’ everywhere but I have heard Montas himself call it a two-seamer, so I’m going to stay consistent with that) compared to four-seamers early in the count to left-handed batters. Instead, his four-seamer joined his nasty splitter as another put-away pitch.
The Brewers are one of the best organizations in baseball at making these in-season, gameplan tweaks and they clearly unlocked something with Montas.
Also, they had him raise his arm angle progressively as the season went on.
His arm angle was rising before the trade, so it’s likely this was simply a function of him getting stronger and more comfortable with his surgically repaired shoulder as he threw more innings. Still, this helped his fastball pick up some more life and miss more bats.
Lastly, any pitcher would be happy to leave Great American Ballpark. It’s the third worst place to pitch and easiest park to allow a home run according to Statcast’s Park Factors.
American Family Field in Milwaukee is the sixth-easiest park to allow a homer, but grades out a pitchers’ park overall. It is significantly more difficult to hit a home run in Citi Field, his new home, than either.
How Does Montas Fit on the Mets
Starved for any and all pitching depth, Montas is a lock to be in the Mets’ opening day rotation as long as he’s healthy. He’s currently slotted in as their number two starter behind Kodai Senga with more additions likely.
This move is a very obvious call-back to the success the Mets had with Severino and Manaea last winter. They were each coming off a handful of not great seasons, signed similar deals to this one, made adjustments, and were key cogs in the Mets’ playoff push.
Rather than re-sign them for possibly more money and/or more years, the Mets felt they were better served trusting their coaching staff and rolling the dice again.
What’s the Risk?
Obviously, Montas can get hurt. He’s still not far removed from a serious shoulder surgery and past injury is the best indication we have for future injury.
Any more issues with his shoulder could also further affect his velocity. Neither of his fastballs have a desirable shape, so losing velocity could make them significantly less effective.
Otherwise, his improved strikeout rate in Milwaukee could wind up a mirage while his walk rate and quality of contact against stay significantly worse than league average and he meanders to an ERA in the mid-fours.
Then, he would back in to this deal next winter and the Mets would be stuck paying a pitcher that’s below league average third starter money. The worst case scenario here, while not great, is nowhere close to a catastrophe.
Conclusions
Montas is in a much better situation now than at any time last year. While the Reds and Brewers are both generally viewed as good places for pitching development, neither has a home ballpark as kind as Citi Field and it’s easy to give both Montas and the Mets the benefit of the doubt after two pitchers in very similar situations last season had career years.
He will not have any competition for a rotation spot and shows legitimate upside to get his ERA back into the mid-threes with an above average strikeout rate. That is, if he can stay healthy and expand on the adjustments he made midseason.
He’s currently being drafted outside the top-500. I expect that ADP to jump. Some of that will be due to Mets-mania and some because he’s now an enticing dart throw that should be viewed on par with players like David Festa, DJ Herz, and Nick Martinez who are being drafted in the 300s.
