Overview
- Rating: 1.28
- 2025 stats: Not applicable
- Date of birth: December 27, 1992 (age 32 season)
- 2025 earnings: $22.5 million
- 2026 status: Free agent
2025 review
I would really like to know the reason of the people who voted four, for a pitcher who didn’t take the mound a single time all year. I guess I’d like to thank his mother, wife and brother for popping into
the SnakePit. Because Jordan did set a new franchise record this year. The $22.5 million he received was, I believe, the highest amount ever paid by the Diamondbacks for someone who did not play for the team during the season in question. The previous record-holder was Yasmany Tomas, who received $13.5 million for his absence in 2018. He would have broken his own record in 2020, being due $17 million. I guess something good came out of COVID?
To be fair, there is a difference here which does matter, and may factor into those “4” votes. Unlike Tomas, it wasn’t simply that the team did not want Montgomery to play because he sucked. He couldn’t play, due to injury, and that certainly deserves some sympathy. On the other hand, you could argue there’s no solid reason to expect a healthy Montgomery would have been any better than in 2024, when he earned $25 million, posted a 6.23 ERA and was so bad over 21 starts, he ended up being dumped to mop-up work in the bullpen. With the team missing out on the post-season by a single game… Yeah, you can understand him not exactly being a fan favorite.
I looked back at last year’s review of Montgomery, which I also wrote – I can only conclude I must have been very bad in a previous life. Though I do note that Jordan did not actually come bottom of our rankings in 2024. The bad news: he came ahead only of a player who spent most of the season suspended for gambling on baseball (albeit, betting about as badly as Montgomery pitched). But I see that I did already cover there Ken Kendrick’s comments on Montgomery, and the player’s unsurprising exercise of his 2025 option. This came in at the $22.5m mentioned, a figure determined by the number of innings he had pitched in 2024.
As Jack noted in December, for Jordan to be worth that, he would have to produce around 2.7 wins. It’s basically what Zac Gallen had done, pitching 148 innings with a 3.65 ERA, and not far off Monty’s average over the three years before joining Arizona. His projected ERA was higher, though given how wretched he had been in Sedona Red, most fans would have taken anything starting with a 4, like a drowning man accepting a pair of water-wings. There was trade speculation, including an attempted swap for the Cubs’ Cody Bellinger. But no-one doubted the team would have to chip in significant money to get any other team to take on any less onerous contract.
Otherwise, the off-season was generally quiet. Montgomery did meet with Kendrick to bury the hatchet over the latter’s scathing comments, the calendar turned over, and pitchers reported to spring training. Despite being relegated to the bullpen in 2024, it seemed that Jordan didn’t feel he was competing for his spot. “Yeah, I mean, that’s what I’m here for. They’re paying me a lot of money.” He also said he lost 20-25 pounds over the winter – insert “best shape of his life” spring training cliche here. He did have a finger injury, putting him a few days behind the other starters, but that wasn’t expected to have a major impact on his regular season.
His first spring outing, on March 8, didn’t go well, allowing five earned runs while recording one out. But a backfield outing five days later was much better, and on March 19, he threw 40 pitches over 2.2 scoreless innings at Salt River Fields, and looked to be getting back on track. Whether that was going to be for Arizona or not, was still undecided, the team reportedly still shopping Jordan around, with John Gambadoro reporting “recent interest from a few teams.” But then, it all fell apart, with the announcement on May 25 that Montgomery was going to need Tommy John surgery.
“Day after that last game, I came back sore, took a day off like I normally do. Next day was still a little achy, so we pushed my bullpen back. Felt decent the next day, kind of just threw through it. Threw a pretty good bullpen, but something was wrong. They told me we were just going to get some imaging on it — we thought it was just kind of a joint thing, would get a shot in there, clean it up and I’d be good. And that just wasn’t the case… I was probably just trying to throw too hard too soon. I was throwing bullpens really hard, and then get in a game and tense up trying to make the perfect pitch. That’s never good for your arm.“
— Jordan Montgomery, March 25
That ended both any chance of him either pitching for the D-backs, and also of being dealt to another team and getting much in the way salary relief. It meant the team had spent $47.5 million and received -1.4 bWAR of production. That’s an effective negative cost of $57.7 million, which would qualify as among the ten worst contracts in franchise history. Considering it was a two-year deal, that’s almost impressive: with the exception of Eric Byrnes, all the players ahead of Montgomery on that list received at least four-year contracts. Considering the general joy at the time of the signing, it may be the most spectacular fall from grace of all time.
There was one last glitch in the tail. We’d more or less all forgotten about Jordan, despite the heavy finger on the scale of the team’s payroll. But then, at the deadline, he was traded with Shelby Miller and cash to the Brewers. Milwaukee took on about $2 million of the remaining amount due to Montgomery, and in exchange got the man who had been our best reliever down the stretch. Though Miller was a free-agent at season end, there was concern we were giving away a player Arizona could have used. The way events unfolded, that’s fair. Except that, after less than ten innings and a 5.59 ERA in Milwaukee, Miller also needed elbow surgery.
Jordan Montgomery: truly the gift that keeps on giving.
2026 outlook
This was actually Montgomery’s second Tommy John surgery, the first taking place in 2018. While he recovered well enough from that, things get murkier second time around. A FanGraphs article concluded, “What a mess, nothing makes sense… at all.” However, Dr. Christopher Ahmad wrote, “The success rates for revision surgeries are notably lower than for the initial procedure. Redo surgeries come with increased risks, longer recovery times, and a reduced likelihood of players returning to their previous level of performance.” At this point, it seems unlikely Montgomery will get even a minor-league invite, until he has proven his health.
If he can do that, then I can certainly imagine someone taking a flier on him, considering there’ll be nothing but upside at that point. Perhaps following Daniel Hudson, who moved to the bullpen after his second Tommy John, might be a possible path for Montgomery to extend his career. I would say, if he ever re-signs with Arizona, there will be riots. But after seeing former scapegoat Shelby Miller successfully execute the redemption story-line this year, rising up to become the Diamondbacks’ closer when all about him were losing their heads elbow ligaments… Let’s never say never, shall we?
