DEC. 10: Montero confirmed Monday that his playing career is over, per Jon Heyman of Fancred. “I’m done,” Montero said.
DEC. 9: Catcher Miguel Montero last took a major league field on April 5, which is likely to go down as his final MLB game. After sitting out nearly all of last season, Montero tells Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic that he’s “pretty much retired,” and has turned his attention to a budding career as an agent. Montero is the CEO of ZT Sports, an agency that features 17 clients, as Piecoro details.
If the 35-year-old Montero is indeed done as a player, his career will conclude with 15.5 fWAR/13.3 rWAR, two All-Star nods, a World Series title and upward of $73.6MM in earnings over 13 seasons. Montero spent the majority of his big league tenure in Arizona, which signed him out of Venezuela for a meager $13,000 in 2001. He debuted with the Diamondbacks in 2006 and later became their primary catcher, a role he held through 2014.
Montero was among the majors’ best backstops during his time in Arizona, where he slashed .264/.342/.421 (100 wRC+) with 97 home runs in 3,430 plate appearances. Defensively, Montero threw out at least 40 percent of would-be base stealers in two of his seasons with the Diamondbacks (2011 and ’12) and generally earned excellent marks behind the plate from Baseball Prospectus.
As a result of the all-around prowess he demonstrated with the Snakes, the team signed Montero to a five-year, $60MM contract extension in 2012. Montero played a significant role in those negotiations, which helped prepare him for becoming an agent, he tells Piecoro.
“I remember we were in Miami,” Montero said. “[Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall] called me and was like, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘I want five years and $60 million.’ He said, ‘Ah, man, we’ve got four for $44 million.’ I was like, ‘I want 5 for 60.’ ‘Is that the number?’ I said, ‘That’s the number. Don’t call me again with five and 59 and a half because I’m not going to take it.’”
While Montero got his desired payday from the Diamondbacks, he didn’t see the deal through in the desert. Instead, Arizona traded Montero to the Cubs prior to the 2015 season for right-handers Zack Godley and Jeferson Mejia. Montero continued to offer respectable offensive production in Chicago, where he batted .242/.342/.395 (99 wRC+) with 27 homers in 799 regular-season plate appearances. His most memorable offensive contribution came against the Dodgers in Game 1 of the 2016 NLCS, in which Montero crushed a pinch-hit, two-out, eighth-inning grand slam off righty Joe Blanton to break a 3-3 tie. Chicago went on to win the game, the NLCS and the World Series in a seven-game masterpiece against the Indians, giving the franchise its first championship in 108 years.
Unfortunately for Montero and the Cubs, his run with the team ended in unceremonious fashion in June 2017. Montero and righty Jake Arrieta combined to allow seven stolen bases in a loss to the Nationals, after which the catcher publicly blamed his battery mate. The Cubs elected to designate Montero for assignment 12 hours later, despite a nice start at the plate that year, with president of baseball operations Theo Epstein telling reporters that the catcher wasn’t “being a good teammate.”
A few days after the Epstein-led Cubs designated Montero, they traded him to the Blue Jays for a minimal return. He ended up recording a disastrous .489 OPS in 101 PAs as a Jay that year. In the wake of his horrific showing in Toronto, Montero settled for a minor league contract with the Nationals last winter. He ultimately appeared in four games as a Nat before they released him April 14.
Reported interest in Montero has been nonexistent since Washington cut ties with him, which has enabled him to pour his efforts into his fledgling agency. MLBTR wishes Montero well in his new venture.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Big fan of this guy. I felt bad he caught Jake Arrieta, and was DFA for calling him out.
Why would you feel bad for a guy that broke one of the players codes?
He sure did. He only had two hits in then entire 2016 postseason. One a grand slam the other an RBI single. I’ll let what he said slide. The umpires were highly against the Cubs when trea Turner stole 5 of 7 bases. At a certain point you gotta put in contreas
Only two hits with “one an RBI single” oh was that all it was? Some RBI single?
It was it am RBI single in the tenth inning of game 7 of the world series to give the Cubs the insurance run they needed to win the World Series by that one run!!
Oh so its on Contreras? Even though he was not catching that day? Ok genius it must have been contreras letting up 7 stolen bases from the bench. Are all you Yankee fans this clueless
He said “at a certain point you gotta put IN Contreras.” … geez you are stupid.
Because the codes are stupid Slevin
So being a good teammate is stupid
You beat me to it. I wonder what this guys work environment is like?
Ask your Mom Slevin
Calling someone out for not holding runners in has nothing to do with whether or not he is a good teammate
My mom’s job is to make sure the homeless are fed.
@batrack – calling your teammate out publicly and putting sole blame on him when you’re part of the problem as well absolutely DOES have to do with being a bad teammate.
Oh yea it sure does
Agreed. He got a lot of flak for that but he wasn’t exactly wrong or anything. Everybody gets on players cases about boring generic answers and then when they say anything out of the ordinary they get on their cases about that too.
Montero had a 3% caught stealing rate that season. Slow to the plate or not, the issue certainly didn’t lie with Arrieta by itself.
And the one CS that he earned with the Cubs that season was a Kyle Hendricks pickoff. He was pretty much beat up by the time he was DFA’d.
Excellent framer. Too bad Contreras did not learn it from him.
BTW, Arrieta agreed with Montero’s criticism, but Miggy probably should have swallowed his pride and kept his mouth shut.
Miggy is an entertaining Tweeter. Will be interesting to see how he presents any clients that he can represent.
JA with Montero catching in 2017 7 GM 35.2 IP 12 SB 0 CS…with Contreas…16 GM 92.2 IP 5 SB 3 CS. Things that make you go….Hmmmmmmm?
Oh and the other 3 catchers combined….7 GM 40 IP 2 SB 1 CS
Good stats Cat.
Thanks TGCF…If I am going to express an opinion I like sprinkle in a little fact. It’s a character flaw of mine.
Not at all, Jake said he had no hard feelings what Miggy said, the main issue it was not the first time he went a whined to the media, he did it right after winning the World Series and ripped Maddon on his role and how he handled the bulllpen. Miggy was a good catcher who refused to see the writing on the wall that his career was over so he put the blame on others.
You’re a “Big fan” of every mlb player aren’t ya
Such a solis career but things turned bad fast near the end. You can’t publicly blast your SP the way he did.
Was Arrieta the ultimate star? Maybe Miguel was right…
He was always fun and respected competition against STL. I got the chance to see the Cards v Snakes in AZ a few years ago. The hometown fans really dug this guy. Solid career. Best of luck
I’ll remember him for the huge insurance RBI single following Zo’s double, not his comments about Arrieta. Congrats on a great career, Miggy
I appreciate that you used the term “insurance RBI” instead of “game winning RBI”. So many fans don’t understand what a game-winning RBI actually is.
Yeah that was my mistake in terms below. I’m guilty of this.
Fair enough, at least you recognize it. I’ve explained to people why it wasn’t the game-winning RBI (in terms of if it was a one-run game, the Cubs would not have let Brandon Guyer steal 2B), and they still don’t buy it.
Not insurance. The Indians scored again in the bottom of the inning. People forget but Miggy had the game winning RBI in one of the most memorable games in baseball history.
Cubs fan here and he always had this selfish vibe he gave off. Not a huge fan of him but his performance in the 2016 postseason was pretty awesome. He was strange, never a fantastic hitter but pretty reliable, and not a 30 homer a year guy but when he did actually hit one they were bombs. Just a less than glorious end in Chicago. That post game press conference in that Arrieta game he just whined like a baby.
One day in Cincy, I watched Miggy stop on a morning after a night game and before an early day game and sign autographs for kids and took photos with them outside the stadium when no one else did. Everybody else could have- only Miggy did. He looked tired but was very patient and each kid got a moment with him.
I recall that Jack Clements, the 19th Century left handed catcher used to return the SP the ball by throwing at his feet intentionally or over his head when he was pissed, and that was often. HOF catchers Mickey Cochran and Roger Bresnahan were known to really let pitchers hear their thoughts regarding pitching performance. The history of the game is really filled with catchers that were not afraid to verbally blast those who’s playing was “indifferent”.
Things change…
Blast your pitchers all you want. Just don’t do it to publicly. That’s the point where he sounded his death knell.
Still good enough to catch for the Mets.
If ey eats her jam she’ll be in the running, unless there’s an age bias.
0-4 in stolen base attempts in 2014. He should have kept trying.
Can’t steal a base, can’t throw out a base runner. Call him what you will, atleast he was consistent.
Cubs sent Montero down to appease Jake Arrieta. Arrieta essentially did the same public-whining thing this year when criticizing Kapler’s shifts – both instances lacked professionalism.
Sent Montero down where?
Yea, wtf is he talking about, unless he means the airport?
sent him down/dfa’d him, you already know the answer and we all know what he meant, all you detail/typo-trolls are the worst on here
Do we? What do you mean?
Or you could just learn to write legibly
Always gonna be a montero fan. I’ll never forget that slam and driving in the eventual World Series winning run for the cubs
How long has he been an agent? He’s only just retired now.
ZT Wealth, an investment firm, announced ZT Sports Sept. 2017. Montero isn’t listed as an MLBPA certified agent but his brother-in-law, Carlos Murcia, is listed as MLBPA Certified Agent & President. They also list an additional agent as well as a Director of Player Development and a Portfolio Manager.
Ballplayers invest in businesses all of the time. This is just that.
zt-sports.com/
Good riddance you piece of slime
he lost my respect when he demanded 5yrs for 60mill if i was the owner i wouldve said bye bye
Looking at his stats, he’s been “pretty much retired” for a few seasons now.
Used to watch him regularly in A ball. Happy for him that he has a ring. Solid catcher who worked hard to go from that raw kid to a big leaguer. Happy retirement, Miguel.
Zobrist gets all the credit for coming through in the WS and deservedly so but everyone seems to forget Montero has the game winning RBI. Miggy was huge in the postseason for the Cubs after getting put on ice most of the season. Fans should never forget him for that even though it ended poorly there for him and he had some real unfortunate comments after the postseason about his usage.
No Cubs fan forgot the big hit by Miggy. He just a player who was unwilling to accept the fact his career was in the twilight stage and was broken down.
I guess he wears a DBacks cap on his HOF plaque.
Well put him the Harold Baines HOF