The Cardinals and left-hander Jordan Montgomery have avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $10MM salary, reports Robert Murray of FanSided.
Montgomery, 30, was drafted by the Yankees and established himself as a solid major league starter with that club. He debuted in 2017 with 29 starts, a 3.88 ERA, 22.2% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 40.7% ground ball rate. Unfortunately, Tommy John surgery and the pandemic kept him from pitching logging many innings over the 2018-2020 period and he struggled a bit when he was on the mound.
He got back on track in 2021 with 30 starts and a 3.83 ERA, while his strikeout and grounder rates ticked up a bit compared to his 2017 season. He had another solid campaign in 2022, which included a midseason trade to the Cards. He finished with a 3.48 ERA, only striking out 21.8% of batters faced but cutting his walk rate to 5% and bumping his grounder rate to 47.6%.
Montgomery first qualified for arbitration for the 2021 season, earning a $2.13MM salary followed by $6MM last year. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Montgomery for a $10.1MM salary, with the southpaw now getting within a hair of that in his last season before he’s slated to become a free agent. Montgomery is one of four starters in the St. Louis rotation set to hit the open market after this season, with Jack Flaherty also in his final arbitration year while Adam Wainwright and Miles Mikolas are each in the final seasons of their respective contracts.
Miss you Monty, and so worth $10 mill.
Agreed and while I miss Bader, I think that trade worked out pretty well for both sides.
Feel like Bader with that “fear in there mouth piece” is gonna be a monster for new york stock
Gonna have cardinals fans saying “really?Again Mozeliak?”
Montgomery is awesome but it just feels sooo plausible?
Sometimes deals work out well for both teams. They were both dealing with some surplus.
I was hoping they would extend him.
Montgomery is sneaky good.
Extend this man! Him and possibly miklaus.
It’s vey hard to extend a Boras client. His clients almost always go to market. I don’t see why a player would sign with him unless they shared that plan.
He’s undervalued for what he delivers. Other than the occasional bombing he takes, his ERA is better than advertised. This is one deal I think the Yankees may regret.
Good centerfielders are just as rare as good starting pitching. Bader’s personality is perfect for NY. He plays hard and he does it with swagger. I bet he sells a lot of jerseys.
No regrets here. Bader filled a need which allowed Judge last season to get some rest. The preference has always been not to play him in CF. Although the team fell short, Bader was really good in the postseason. Monty would’ve not have even started a playoffs game.
Ya, Bader might be my first Yankee Jersey! Loved him as a Cardinal!
I sure hope that the front office is working on an extension as well. Our future rotation as it stands right now is not competitive.
Champs: I hope they’ll be competitive in 2023. My one concern is at catcher. I doubt Contreras can handle a pitching staff as well as Yadi did for so many seasons. Just look at the Giants. Posey retires and the team falls to .500. You can’t replace players like that. I wish the Cards had signed Vazquez instead because he’s better at handling the pitching staff than Contreras. OK you metrics and analytics freaks. Hit me with your alphabet soup to prove that I’m wrong.
No alphabet soup. Yadi and the St Louis talent evaluators believe Contreras can handle the staff. I’ll give him a chance to prove them right. Murphy was the catcher I wanted but they were asking too much for him.
At least you’re not getting Contreras midseason he’s going to be with the Cardinals pitching staff from the start of Spring Training so yes, give him a chance to get to know the guys.
Nobody can replace yadi PERIOD!!!!! Get over it guys. He was best in business partly because of his experience and partly because he’s yadi. However, the bat will be better. We have waino to help and gotta let new staff do it as well. Willson will be fine but for gods sake let him be him.
You can not compare anyone to one of the greatest catchers….
Also liked Vazquez. Oh well, I hope Contreras is great for us.
That’s a real stretch of the correlation-causation concept if you’re claiming Posey’s retirement was the primary cause of the Giants’ drop from 107 wins to 81.
Sign him to a 4 year extension cards…… Great person and great pitcher
Montgomery will do well in that division. He did well in a stacked American League east
Bader can only help this awful yankee lineup