How Much Should You Expect Jordan Montgomery to Rebound?
Continuing our series of Arizona Diamondbacks player reviews, we arrive at Jordan Montgomery. The projection below is a composite of ZiPS and Steamer projections, prorated to our playing time projection.
Jordan Montgomery, Left-Hand Starting Pitcher, Age 32
In the case of Montgomery, it's almost impossible to accurately project playing time. Coming off a disastrous 2024, he might not even be a Diamondback by the end of spring training. The team is widely expected to try to trade him and offload a major chunk of his $22.5 million dollar contract.
Should he remain with the club however he will be one of six or seven major league starters and unless he far outperforms the projection, could easily see his starts limited. If he's right around the projection, he could be moved at the trade deadline perhaps, also shortening his playing time projection with Arizona. These dynamics are reflected in the games and innings projected below
Why Jordan Montgomery might outperform his projection
By now it's a well worn path to claim that missing spring training due to signing late, and trying to ramp up in three weeks worth of starts in Triple-A Reno were a major factor in Montgomery's poor season.
After all he was coming off 4-WAR season in 2023 in which he posted a 3.20 ERA and 3.56 FIP in188 innings for the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers. He followed that up with 31 more innings in the postseason, pitching to a 2.90 ERA, and was a key component in getting the Rangers to the World Series.
The combined 220 innings were by far a career high, besting his previous total of 181 innings in 2022. The combination of such a heavy workload and then missing spring training could easily have been the root causes for his poor season.
Now with a full offseason of rest, and a full spring training to get ready for the season, Montgomery is poised to be a bounce back candidate.
Why Jordan Montgomery might under perform his projection
The narrative that missing spring training was a major cause of Montgomery's troubles is undermined by a very inconvenient fact. He threw 78 and then 87 pitches in his first two starts, throwing a total of 13 innings and giving up just four runs while walking one and striking out seven.
If not having enough time to get ready for the season was truly a cause of his problems, then why were his first two starts two of his most effective? He got bombed by the Dodgers in his next outing to the tune of six runs in three innings, but then bounced back with a seven inning, two run outing against the Reds.
That was three quality starts in his first four games, and nobody was talking about spring training then. In his next 21 games, 17 starts he managed just three quality starts and posted a 6.61 ERA.
The velocity on his trademark sinker was down 1.5 MPH from 93.3 in 2023 to 91.5 in 2024. Never a hard thrower to begin with, Montgomery isn't necessarily dependent on velocity, but such a steep drop in just one season is still never a good sign.
It wasn't just the sinker however that failed him. The numbers on the curveball and changeup were also the worst of his career. He simply had no put-away ability on any pitch, leading to his strikeout rate plummeting all the way to 15.6%.
On the strength of his prior track record, the projection sees a rebound to roughly a league average starter in terms of ERA, with a better than average walk rate but below average strikeout and hit rates. But projections sometimes can't pick up a steep downward trend for a previously considered solid player.
Jeff Zimmerman, Co-Author of The Process and a contributor on Rotographs, posted the following on Bluesky
"Since 2020 there have been 23 pitchers who in season 1 had between a 3.40 and 4.00 ERA in at least 120. In Season 2, their ERA was 6.00 and threw at least 40 IP. Here is how their next season went. Not a good outlook for Montgomery, Elder, and Miller."
Examining the table above, not only is the average ERA of this group 5.98 and median 5.40 in year three, but only eight of the 23 pitchers exceeded 100 innings. Only one of those eight had an ERA below 4.00. Steven Matz bounced back to post a 3.97 ERA in 154 innings. But he was only 27, not 32.
Summary
Jordan Montgomery is not a great bounce-back candidate. Despite evidence to the contrary, any team he pitches for in 2025 must hope that having a full spring training and coming off a much smaller workload from 2024 compared to years prior gives his stuff a boost.