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Don’t forget about Jordan Montgomery

With the news on Tuesday that Luis Severino will need Tommy John surgery, the Yankees are now down two starting pitchers before the calendar has even flipped to March. Severino joins James Paxton as the pitchers who will not be ready for Opening Day, which means that others will have to step up. One such pitcher is Jordan Montgomery.

It is easy to forget just how solid Montgomery was as a rookie in 2017. He was 24 years old that season and came out of practically nowhere to win a spot in the rotation. After making only six starts in 2018, he needed Tommy John and missed the rest of that season as well as the entire 2019 campaign.

At the moment, the rotation probably shakes out like this: Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ, open spot, open spot. Montgomery is easily a favorite to claim one of the openings, with guys such as Jonathan Loaisiga, Michael King, and Clarke Schmidt competing for the other. So what can Montgomery bring to the table in 2020?

I will be looking at 2017 for a more complete picture of Montgomery’s body of work. He has never been a hard thrower — he averaged 91.7 MPH on his sinker in 2017 and 91.9 MPH on his four-seamer. So he must make up for it with movement, right? Well, the vertical and horizontal movement on all of his pitches were below league average except for the vertical movement on his four-seam fastball. Yet he still managed to hold hitters to an expected batting average of .173 with his curve and .179 with his slider. 

Montgomery has been transitioning to becoming more of a pitcher who’s primary pitch is a sinker rather than a four-seam. 

Percent usage 2017

Percent usage 2018

Percent usage 2019

Four-seam

17.4

21.2

6.1

Sinker

24.5

19.9

43.9

This makes sense, as he has been a ground-ball pitcher in his career, generate 41.6 percent ground-balls versus 27.0 percent fly-balls. This plays well at Yankee Stadium. In his first two seasons, he pitched to a very solid 1.18 HR/9. 

With his velocity, Montgomery never really was a swing-and-miss type of pitcher. But throughout the 2017 season, he became even less of a swing-and-miss pitcher and pitched to contact more often.  

His 31.8 percent hard-hit rate put him in the top 100 (97th) that year among qualifiers. 

Here’s how he stacked up against league averages:

XBA XSLG XWOBA
League average .253

.422

.325

Montgomery .243 .407

.313

So by all means, Montgomery was an above-average major league starter as a rookie. And now that he’s essentially locked in to being the fourth starter, he will have to perform well once again to put management at peace and not force them to make a big move as the season wears on.Â