If we've seen Charlie Morton's last game for the Braves, I'm hoping Jordan Montgomery can be a "decent enough". I can see him in the backside of SP or bullpen. Makes around 10 starts until Spencer Strider's ready to go? Around 4 ERA is good for me.

I ike the FanGraphs Depth Chart prediction for him and would be ok the Braves do a split deal and take on around $13 million. Frankie Montas signed with the Mets for 2/$34 and I feel like he's a decent enough comp. What's your take here?

I wasn't a believer last year when it was Sale and López coming over so maybe Montgomery will be good like that in '25. If not Charlie Morton, then I'd rather not have Montgomery but instead cheer for AJ Smith-Shawver as he proves he belongs in the Majors. Or Ian Anderson's a true dark horse and all is good again in Braves Country.

I asked about a Montgomery trade on the Diamondbacks sub. 90% or so of the comments weren't even about a salary dump for Montgomery. I'm hoping for better results with this post. Let's go Braves!

8 comments

  4. Braves will need to have significant salary coverage because they don’t want to go over luxury tax

  5. Let me preface this by the fact I see the appeal in Montgomery on a surface level and I understand why it’s such a popular suggestion. I can also see the front office going after it if Arizona covers money, but that hasn’t been a way the D-Backs have operated in the past. I wouldn’t be outright against it (even if it may seem this way in this post), but I’d be really disappointed if that’s the SP route they choose to go with this off-season. Montgomery’s always massively outperformed his peripherals and no doubt the postseason run with Texas probably made him more money than he was worth. His K-BB% had declined for 3 straight years leading up to his free agency and he ran a xFIP and SIERA >4 in ‘23. The stuff, outside of his curveball, is not great and I didn’t see much of a sustainable profile in general going forwards. We saw last year that once the velo dropped a bit that the strikeouts disappeared and, even with better contact quality and a higher Chase% than he’d generated the two years before, the results were awful.

    There are some benefits, he’d provided solid innings the three years before and generally his peripherals had been better than they were entering free agency. The Chase% had always been great because of the unique curveball shape, and the >20% K% all of those years did enforce a solid floor. I do chalk up most of last year’s disaster to having no Spring Training as well.

    On a trade front, it would have to be a salary dump. At the moment he’s slated to be the most expensive swingman in MLB history since Arizona really has 5 starters that are better than him. Arizona probably won’t want to cover anything though, and I don’t think the Braves want to spend $22.5M on him. If that’s the price for him, there are better options with more control for about the same price in free agency even.

  6. The word is the Diamondbacks tried to trade Jordan Montgomery for Cody Bellinger. The word is the Diamondbacks are still in solid competition to compete, so for a trade it’s going to take solid talent to acquire him, Ken Kendrick isn’t going to want to pay money for a guy who isn’t on his roster anymore, especially with how expensive good starting pitching is. Cute idea, but it’s just your pipe dream.

  7. Jordan Montgomery is not good, and has been grossly overrated for the majority of his career. No thanks.

  8. Agreed at a price tag of $20M or less total salary with no meaningful prospects in the trade, he’s among the best candidates.

    I’m just aiming for a #4 to start the season who likely would be a solid 160+ innings across the season. I don’t want to use any more prospect capital than necessary to acquire that type player

Leave a Reply