Jordan Montgomery was probably the greatest MLB free brokers available on the market final winter. The veteran beginning pitcher was glorious after a mid-season commerce to the Texas Rangers, posting a 2.78 ERA in his 11 begins with the membership on the best way to a World Sequence championship. The workforce Texas beat to win the World Sequence was the Arizona Diamondbacks. As Montgomery lingered available on the market till Spring Coaching, Diamondbacks proprietor Ken Kendrick noticed a chance to enhance the workforce’s rotation and pushed for the entrance workplace to signal him.
The 2024 MLB Playoffs are actually set, and the Diamondbacks had been left on the skin wanting in. The workforce was eradicated from the postseason throughout Monday’s electrical double-header between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets. Arizona one workforce to brush the double-header to make the postseason, however as an alternative the groups break up, leaving the D-Backs out the playoffs.
Because the Diamondbacks had been reckoning with lacking the playoffs a yr after enjoying within the World Sequence, Kendrick went on native radio in Arizona and did one thing you not often see from a professional sports activities proprietor: he blamed himself for signing Montgomery.
“If anybody desires in charge anybody for Jordan Montgomery being a Diamondback, you are speaking to the man that needs to be blamed.”
D-backs managing common accomplice Ken Kendrick on the signing of Montgomery within the offseason.
Full interview: https://t.co/c9zHhCcebT pic.twitter.com/4wfNmwihSX
— The Burns & Gambo Present (@BurnsAndGambo) October 1, 2024
Right here’s the total transcription:
“If anybody desires in charge anybody for Jordan Montgomery being a Diamondback, you’re speaking to the man that needs to be blamed,” Kendrick informed Arizona Sports activities. “As a result of I introduced it to [the front office’s] consideration. I pushed for it. They agreed to it — it wasn’t in our recreation plan. You recognize when he was signed — proper on the finish of spring coaching. And looking out again, in hindsight, a horrible choice to take a position that cash in a man who carried out as poorly as he did. It’s our greatest mistake this season from a expertise standpoint. And I’m the perpetrator of that.”
Montgomery had by far the worst season of his profession with Arizona. He completed posted a 6.23 ERA and 1.65 WHIP in 21 begins, giving up 149 hits in 117 innings. Yikes.
It appears like participant efficiency has extra peaks and valleys in baseball than every other sport. Montgomery had been a dependable beginning pitcher all through his profession, nevertheless it all fell aside this season. Arizona gave him a two-year, $47 million cope with a participant possibility for 2025. That possibility stands at $22.5 million for subsequent yr, and he’s sure to choose it up.
May Montgomery bounce again subsequent yr? Positive. Baseball is bizarre like that. It’s simply so uncommon you hear an proprietor throw a participant underneath the bus like this whereas on the identical time blaming himself for the signing.
