Welcome again to High of the Order, the place each Tuesday and Friday I’ll be beginning your baseball day with some information, notes, and ideas in regards to the sport we love.
Jordan Montgomery has been unhealthy in his first season with the Diamondbacks. A 6.44 ERA is unhealthy, a 5.23 xERA is unhealthy, a 15.5% strikeout charge is unhealthy, a .377 wOBA allowed is unhealthy. Everyone knows these items. (Dad, in case you’re studying this, and I do know you might be: You now know these items. All these stats are unhealthy.) So I’m not going to spend an excessive amount of time belaboring that time. However Montgomery’s badness has cascading results past simply how lengthy to stay with him within the rotation or if he’ll even be on the playoff roster the Diamondbacks virtually actually might be setting up.
Montgomery agreed to a deal with the Diamondbacks simply earlier than Opening Day for a contract paying him a assured $25 million this 12 months, and it crucially got here with a vesting participant choice for Montgomery, as negotiated by his agent on the time, Scott Boras. (Montgomery has since left Boras for Joel Wolfe and Nick Chanock at Wasserman.) If Montgomery had made fewer than 10 begins this 12 months, he merely would’ve change into a free agent after the World Collection; this was meant to restrict Arizona’s threat if Montgomery sustained a long-term damage whereas ramping up after his late signing.
However what it didn’t shield the Diamondbacks from was ineffectiveness, and Montgomery’s 2025 is now in his arms. The choice worth started at $20 million, when Montgomery made his tenth begin, after which went as much as $22.5 million upon his 18th begin. It’s going to attain its most worth of $25 million with 4 extra begins. Since Montgomery could be very a lot within the “he would in all probability should take a one-year pillow contract” territory, I’d be completely shocked if he didn’t take the $25 million payday. The most effective he can hope for now could be that subsequent 12 months, after getting a traditional offseason and a full spring coaching, he pitches extra like he did when he dominated through the 2023 postseason, in order that his worth rebounds when he turns into free agent once more after the 2025 season.
The downstream results on any staff’s payroll could be notable — $25 million is quite a bit! — however particularly so for the Diamondbacks. The Snakes at the moment have $171 million dedicated to this season, their highest payroll ever, and $63 million dedicated to subsequent 12 months. If Montgomery makes 4 extra begins and elects to stick with the staff, subsequent 12 months’s determine would leap to $88 million. On the floor, you’d assume that will give Arizona a ton of room to construct a staff simply nearly as good as this one, however the payroll can enhance very sharply, in a short time.
That $63 million quantity is barely what’s truly dedicated to gamers as of this second, primarily the assured cash to Eduardo Rodriguez, Ketel Marte, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and Corbin Carroll. Additionally included are the presumed buyouts of the mutual choices (that are just about by no means exercised) for Joc Pederson, Randal Grichuk, and Scott McGough. That $63 million additionally consists of the mixed $3 million in buyouts that the D-backs would wish to pay in the event that they don’t decide up their membership choices on Eugenio Suárez and Merrill Kelly. Suárez’s choice may go both manner, so for now we’ll simply assume that it’s declined, however Kelly’s looks like a no brainer to get picked up for simply $7 million. Working off of that (including the $7 million and subtracting the $1 million buyout they received’t should pay him), we’re now at $69 million, or $94 million with Montgomery. That determine could be about 55% of this 12 months’s franchise-record payroll for simply six gamers.
Onto the arbitration-eligible gamers: Zac Gallen, A.J. Puk, Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkel, and Joe Mantiply have gone via arbitration earlier than and will all stick round; they’re making about $14.3 million mixed this 12 months. If we conservatively assume that within the combination they get raises of 25%, that’s one other $18 million or so added to subsequent 12 months’s payroll, for a complete of $112 million. Throw in $3 million mixed for the fellows who’ll be of their first 12 months of arbitration — Alek Thomas and Geraldo Perdomo — and we’re all the way in which as much as two-thirds of this 12 months’s payroll. Pre-arbitration gamers ought to account for, at absolute minimal, one other $10 million or so, and growth, that brings the determine as much as $125 million, 70% of the place it’s at this season.
All of that would go away the D-backs loads of room to construct one other actually good staff in the event that they didn’t have any important free brokers to interchange, however in fact, they virtually actually will. Pederson has been quietly elite as a platoon DH; regardless of enjoying precisely zero video games within the discipline and going through lefties solely 30 instances, he’s compiled 3.1 WAR as a result of he’s simply so darn good at mashing righties. Christian Walker, at the moment on the IL with an indirect pressure, is ready to hit free company coming into his age-34 season, so he’s not in line for an enormous deal, however he’d nonetheless in all probability reject Arizona’s qualifying supply and search for an extended contract.
Maybe Seventh-ranked prospect Jordan Lawlar is ready to issue into the infield, making Suárez’s doable departure simpler to swallow, however there’s no inheritor obvious to Walker at first or Pederson at DH. The D-backs traded away their offense-first prospects Andrés Chaparro and Deyvison De Los Santos, and Tommy Troy — their different top-100 prospect — is struggling in Excessive-A and years away from the majors. Maybe Gurriel Jr. spends extra time at DH subsequent season to maintain him contemporary, with a speedy outfield of Carroll, Thomas, and Jake McCarthy, although with out Pederson and Walker, that actually makes for a worse offense. Signing not less than one starting-caliber participant would value (once more, conservatively) not less than $12 million, which might deliver them to 80% of this season’s payroll.
Once more, all of those estimates are conservative, and I’m together with solely the naked minimal funding that the Diamondbacks must make to proceed to have a aggressive, full roster. All of this to say: They could should get inventive. With Montgomery and Kelly each anticipated to be round subsequent season, Arizona could have six starters (Montgomery, Kelly, Rodriguez, Gallen, Ryne Nelson, and Brandon Pfaadt) for 5 rotation spots. The D-backs may commerce from that surplus to fill a place of want, simply as they did a pair offseasons in the past after they dealt Daulton Varsho for Gabriel Moreno and Gurriel Jr.
Groups would line up for Pfaadt, Nelson quietly has been value a stable 2.0 WAR, and even when he hasn’t pitched like an ace for over a 12 months now, Gallen nonetheless has notable commerce worth as he enters his ultimate 12 months earlier than free company. I’m not saying the Diamondbacks undoubtedly will commerce a starter, however it’s one thing they need to think about. The Orioles, for instance, are wealthy in younger place gamers and have simply three rotation spots (Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, and Trevor Rogers) locked in for subsequent 12 months.
In fact, if Montgomery bounces again subsequent season, Arizona received’t remorse paying him $25 million, however until possession decides to extend payroll, issues are going to be tight. The first focus for the Diamondbacks proper now could be on defending their Nationwide League title, however no matter how lengthy they final throughout their possible return to the postseason, powerful selections could also be awaiting them on the opposite aspect of October.