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Diamondbacks starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery is changing agents from Scott Boras to Joel Wolfe and Nick Chanock from Wasserman, according to Kiley McDaniel of ESPN. Normally a player moving agencies wouldn’t really move the needle, but it seems notable here after the offseason Boras had.
Montgomery, 31, was reportedly seeking a multi-year deal that went up into nine figures (that’s hundreds of millions) and ended up signing a one-year, $25 million deal with a $20 million player option for 2025 on March 29. In signing so late in spring training, Montgomery has since been working his way up to readiness for the season and still hasn’t debuted for the defending NL champs.
There were four high-profile free agents who entered spring training unsigned and all were Boras clients. They became known as the Boras Four. Montgomery was in that group along with Cody Bellinger, Blake Snell and Matt Chapman. All had their warts but also plenty of upside.
Bellinger – The 2019 NL MVP took a one-year deal with the Cubs last season in an effort to prove he was past his awful 2021-22 seasons. He had an injury that held him to 130 games, but still hit .307/.356/.525 (134 OPS+) with 29 doubles, 26 homers, 97 RBI, 95 runs and 20 steals. He still was unsigned until the Cubs brought him back on Feb. 27 with a three-year, $80 million deal with opt outs.
Snell – He won his second Cy Young in 2023 and still was unsigned until March 19. It ended up being a one-year, $32 million deal with a $30 million player option for 2025. Like Bellinger, there were plenty of question marks between his awesome seasons, but he was hardly a one-year wonder.
Chapman – An All-Star and Platinum Glove winner has two top-seven MVP finishes. After a scorching hot start to 2023 at the plate, he fell apart and was awful, offensively, for the last 2/3 or so of the season. He’s still one of baseball’s best defensive players and has three 25+ homer seasons. He got his one-year, $18 million deal with a bunch of options on March 3.
Montgomery – He’s never been an All-Star and hadn’t previously been known as a frontline starting pitcher, but he really locked in down the stretch after being traded to the Rangers last season and had a few ace-like outings in the playoffs as the Rangers went on to win the World Series. They couldn’t have done it without him. In his last three seasons, Montgomery was 25-24 with a 3.48 ERA (121 ERA+) and 486 strikeouts in 524 1/3 innings.
If we were only looking at the Montgomery that was 4-2 with a 2.79 ERA and 1.09 WHIP in his 11 regular-season starts with the Rangers — in addition to 3-1 with a 2.90 ERA in 31 playoff innings — he sure looked like an ace. That appeared to be the selling point for Boras this past offseason and teams weren’t buying it.
Given his age and track record of being a good-but-not-great starter, it’s understandable that teams didn’t want to pay him like a true ace. Mid-rotation starters have gotten paid plenty in recent years, however. Chris Bassitt is on a three-year, $63 million deal. Taijuan Walker has four years and $72 million. Montgomery’s former Yankees teammate, Jameson Taillion, is on a four-year, $68 million deal.
Montgomery is likely shooting for a much higher average annual salary than those contracts contained and it could certainly be argued he deserved more. Maybe he was even offered more and turned it down. Whatever happened, there was a bit of a disconnect with Montgomery between his value and the contract he ended up taking, much like it appeared to be the case with Bellinger, Snell and/or Chapman, arguably.
As Liam Hendriks mentioned to me, we don’t know “what those guys are asking for” or “what the teams were offering. It could’ve been one little bit away and neither side was willing to budge.”
As such, we can’t sit here and say anything was Boras’ fault and we can’t 100% blame the teams/owners for not offering more money. We just don’t know for sure what all went down with these players in free agency.
What we do know is it all seemed a bit odd and now Montgomery has moved on from Boras just a few weeks after signing his deal.
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