It’s hard to believe the New York Mets 2024 campaign came to a screeching half just over five weeks ago following a NLCS Game 6 loss to the eventual World Champion Dodgers. I haven’t taken the time to write about my favorite team since. Chalk it up to the holidays, other duties around the brand, my personal and professional life, or whatever other excuse I’d like to come up with, but I figured it was time to strike finger to keyboard, which speaking of the holidays needs an upgrade (poorly), and let everyone up in the nosebleeds know my opinion on the newest New York Metropolitan, Mr. Frankie Montas.
Montas, like that last sentence, has run on for what seems like forever during his somehow just 9-year Major League Baseball career. The right-hander has a career 4.09 earned run average but has been closer to 5.00 than 4.00 since the second half of 2022. Instead of yelling at David Stearns and the Mets like I did after the signings of Luis Severino and Sean Manea last offseason, I’m going to not only trust in the leadership that nearly led New York to a World Series, but dive deeper beyond the 100+ year old outdated surface statistics that are really only referenced by baby boomers, box score merchants, and Mets haters like my podcast co-host Matt.
Montas surrendered under 2.0 home runs per 9 innings last season while mostly pitching in the great American joke of a ball park in Cincinnati. More importantly, or at least optimistically, the 29-year-old stuck out over 9 batters per 9 innings, including an elite 11.0 K/9 during his 11 starts with the Brewers down the stretch. Milwaukee clearly unlocked something in Montas, something that X user Issac Groffman pointed out in a beautifully worded thread after the signing was reported. Not only did the Brewers coaching staff implore Montas to throw his cutter and sinker more frequently, but told him to raise his arm angle 7 degrees as well.
For those that don’t remember from my constant chattering and praise for the aforementioned Sean Manea this season, he put up a career-best year in large part due to an arm angle tweak of his own. I want to believe David Stearns saw the glaring similarities between the two cases, along with the velocity and cutter usage similarities with the other 2024 bounce-back pitcher of the year candidate in Queens, Luis Severino and foamed at the mouth thinking about what his new $17 Million pitcher could do once he puts on the Orange and Blue Blue, and sometimes black and blue, or black and purple, (jersey combinations have really gotten out of hand), for his Mets. I certainly am.
I’m not going to sit here and write about how Frankie Montas is going to finish with his first sub-3 era season since 2019 in 2025, but I am optimistic about his chances to become a quality thrower in the middle of the Mets rotation. Last season’s success and the vision heading into the future have given me no reason to believe otherwise. At the same time, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that the first major news out of the Mets offseason didn’t involve Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, or another key bat on a market chalk full of them. I didn’t blog following the ‘Jose Siri Trade’, mainly because I thought a tweet half-jokingly voicing my frustration over Howie Rose and Keith Raad being interrupted by my phone would suffice. The move was cool, but all it did was replace Harrison Bader with a cheaper, equally entertaining backup outfielder.
This Montas move does much of the same thing, but in the pitching rotation. Sean Manea and Luis Severino are candidates for larger, multi-year type deals that David Stearns is unlikely to dish out. I’d love to see both back at the right price (Manea still might be back), but this Montas move gives New York plenty of flexibility to negotiate with both. The move gets a solid “B” grade from me. I know that opinion carries about the same weight as the pen Montas used to sign the contract, but it’s reassuring to me nontheless.
Go get Juan Soto now.
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