The Mets announced that they have designated Frankie Montas for assignment, and the team has requested unconditional release waivers on the right-hander. The transaction removes Montas from the 40-man roster, allowing the team to select the contract of outfield prospect Nick Morabito in advance of today’s Rule 5 deadline. The Athletic’s Will Sammon reported on Morabito’s selection earlier today. Reporter Michael Marino was the first to pass on the news that Montas would be designated for assignment, with SNY’s Andy Martino providing the later update that Montas was being released.
The DFA period is essentially irrelevant since no team will claim or make a trade offer for Montas, who is owed $17MM in 2026 and will miss all or most of the season while recovering from a torn UCL. As such, today’s move closes the book on Montas’ Queens tenure after less than a year, as he signed his two-year, $34MM free agent deal with the Mets last December.
Montas ended up tossing just 38 2/3 innings over nine appearances in a Mets uniform. Montas suffered a lat strain in Spring Training and didn’t make his Mets debut until June, and he then struggled to a 6.28 ERA and lost his rotation job. Even worse injury news emerged in late August, as Montas underwent UCL surgery. It wasn’t known if Montas had a Tommy John surgery or a brace procedure, but either way, 2026 is going to be another lost year for the veteran righty.
Unsurprisingly, Montas didn’t trigger the opt-out clause after the first year of his contract, and thus he remains on the Mets’ books for a $17MM salary in 2026. Montas probably won’t land his next contract until next winter, and a minor league deal seems like the next step for a pitcher with such a shaky recent track record. Beyond his disastrous 2025 season, Montas also appeared in just one game in 2023 due to shoulder surgery, stemming from shoulder issues that led to a rough end to his 2022 campaign.
He recovered to toss 150 2/3 innings of 4.84 ERA ball with the Reds and Brewers in 2024, which was enough to convince the Mets that Montas might be close to regaining his early-career form as a staple of the Athletics rotation. Instead, the signing will go down as a total bust for David Stearns’ front office, and one of several ill-advised pitching moves that contributed to New York’s disappointing 83-win season.
Morabito was a second-round pick for the Mets in the 2022 draft, and his selection to the 40-man roster means that rival teams won’t be able to select the 22-year-old in December’s Rule 5 Draft. Known for his excellent speed, Morabito has stolen 130 bases in 160 attempts during his pro career, including 49 swipes for Double-A Binghamton in 2025. This was Morabito’s first time playing Double-A ball and he hit .273/.348/.385 with six homers and 27 doubles to go along with his impressive stolen-base total.
MLB Pipeline ranks Morabito 16th amongst all Mets prospects, and the scouting report notes that Morabito’s offensive potential is held back by his tendency to hit too many grounders. His speed can turn some of those grounders into singles, of course, but “elevating on contact will be a big goal…if he is going to have a chance to be more than a speedy, high-contact fourth outfielder.” Defensively, Morabito is seen as a decent outfielder who can handle all three positions, though his modest throwing arm probably makes right field his least-effective spot on the grass.
Bold move cotton, let’s see if it pays off.
How is it a bold move?
The money is completely sunk due to his injury so there’s no reason whatsoever to waste a roster spot on him.
It’s called humor buddy. It’s obviously a wise move.
I am well aware of the “bold move, Cotton” meme, I just don’t see how it applies here since it usually is used when someone does something dumb or at least seemingly dumb, and this move obviously isn’t dumb.
Let it go, King Karen. It was a joke.
It was a joke that made no sense, though. We need to hold our reference-based humor to a higher standard. Come on, people, don’t excuse this!
rct: But what do you suggest doing about it?
In this context it was more sarcasm than humor, which I assume is what the OP was going for.
Pads- I am not entirely sure that it was a joke, actually. Yeah, he says that it was ex post facto, but that doesn’t mean it really was when it was posted.
rct- You get it. If we can’t be annoyingly pedantic about utterly trivial things like the proper usage of 20 year old memes here on MLBTR, then where can we be?
King Floch: LOL and quite true. Otherwise, why even get out of bed? 🤣
biggest waste of $34million in baseball history
Rendon has played like 250 games in the past 6 seasons combined…and is owed like $34M a season
Rendon is the biggest waste of $245 million.
Montas the biggest waste of $34 million.
Rendon made $38.571 million last year to play 0 games.
He’d wasted $34 million by September and kept on collecting checks.
“chandlerbing” just NEVER thinks before he comments.
He is truly awful. No wonder why he muted me.
Yeah, it’s definitely a very strong contender for that title.
I see your challenge, and raise you Jeimer Candelario
lol and this is part of spending money recklessly…
Stearns is critiqued here for spending recklessly. Later he’ll be critiqued for being Dollar Tree David.
13Morgs13: lol Phillies
White Sox on a 1-year league minimum deal
Can’t hurt especially since White Sox are on the hook for league minimum,
Knowing he’s out for next season, then yes, this sounds like a very Pale Hose thing to do…
lol didn’t really read it. Just saw that. Whoops. But yeah, would be very White Sox
Oh lord, I just saw it too lol
baseball-reference.com/players/m/montafr02.shtml
His pitching line for the Mets was nearly identical to his Yankee line from 2022 & 2023. Deja Vu all over again. It’s like the Mets FO doesn’t learn anything from the Yankee mistakes. LOL
Wow, who could of seen Montas not working out….
I guess that Harvard isn’t sending their best, Joe Schmo who does plumbing for a living in Brooklyn could of predicted that this was a bad signing from day 1
You’ve made 13,232 negative comments about Montas not working out. You’ve said nothing about Holmes working out.
LFGMets (Metsin7): I happen to have a couple of tax clients who do plumbing for a living here in Brooklyn, and they are highly experienced, respected, and trained licensed professionals with profitable thriving businesses.
And unlike you, they know enough to say “could HAVE.”
I wonder where Frankie Montas ranks in the baseball or all sports pantheon of “guys who got paid a ton of money for their potential without any real consistency or valuable results”
I feel like he’d rank relatively high on that list…
Per FanGraphs, Montas has produced $88 million in on field value
Per Baseball Reference, he will have been paid $66 million at the end of the season
“The Athletic’s Will Sammon reported on Morabito’s selection earlier today. Reporter Michael Marino was the first to pass on the news that Montas would be designated for assignment, with SNY’s Andy Martino providing the later update that Montas was being released.”
Why is it important to tell us who said what and when other than tooting the horn of one reporter or another?
Correctly citing sources is important. MLBTR is a content aggregator and is doing the right thing.
This also allows them the opportunity to change their reporting as stories evolve.
HalosHeavenJJ: OK. But why is the order important?
Always always always cite your sources.
There is a silver lining in this DFA. Dicky Lovelady is still hanging on.
Who’s hanging onto what now?
Getting and recovering from surgery can not be fun. Nor is the physical therapy required for rehab.
But for $17 million bucks I’d gladly spend next year doing it.
If Montas wasn’t broken broken, I’d have liked it if the Mariners would at minimum kick the tires just because you can never have too many pitchers, especially since Bryce Miller has a wacky elbow of his own now. Oh well, hopefully Montas can catch on somewhere and bounce back someday.
Mets will have to pay the rest of his contract. He might get a 1MM deal midseason.
Much more selection is coming in the following hours.
A fool and their money are soon parted
Frankie Montas has more money than you. Try professional baseball, Comrade.
He has more money than me, and we pitch almost the same amount of innings each year!