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Last night, the Yankees swung a deal to bolster their starting rotation by adding Frankie Montas (and Lou Trivino) in a trade with the Oakland Athletics.
Oakland's top starter for the last several seasons, Montas now finds himself in pinstripes and in the bright lights of the Big Apple on a team with World Series aspirations.
Let's take a look at what Montas has done this year so far and speculate a bit about what a move to the Bronx might do for his fantasy value for the rest of the season.
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A Known Commodity
Montas is in his fifth season in the majors, but last year was the first year he topped 100 innings as he started 32 games and completed 187 frames. That's nearly six innings per start and he finished 13-9 despite pitching for a below-average team. This year he's made 19 starts and missed a few weeks on the IL last month, but he was on pace for about the same number of innings and starts before that. However, his record stands at only 4-9 as the Oakland offense has been literally one of the worst in baseball. The A's gutted their roster in the offseason and are in full rebuild mode, hence the move to send Montas to New York.
Despite his poor W-L record, Montas actually has slightly better numbers than last season in ERA, xFIP, GB%, and WHIP. His strikeouts have dipped a bit, but he's still at a strong 25% K rate and whiffing more than a batter per inning.
If you look at his results over the last 290 innings (2021 and 2022), you're seeing what Frankie is as a major league starter. He's a guy who throws hard (95-96 MPH on his two-seamer and four-seamer) with a solid slider and splitter as his secondary pitchers. He's added a cutter this season, too, giving him yet another pitch to use against RHH. He doesn't walk guys and gets his fair share of groundballs, allowing him to pitch deeper into games than earlier in his career. He's really become a pitcher and not just a thrower like he was early in his career.
Run Support Upgrade
Montas was being backed by the offense with the second-fewest runs scored per game (3.4) and now gets the benefit of having the best-scoring offense behind him as the Yankees average nearly two more runs per game at 5.37. While we certainly don't measure a pitcher's effectiveness by their wins, it's still a stat that is used in plenty of fantasy baseball leagues. You have to like his chances to pile up some wins down the stretch with the improved run support behind him and I can't help but think that pitching with a lead instead of behind or tied in games is going to give him more confidence as well.
Park Downgrade
Moving from one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in Oakland to Yankee Stadium is obviously a downgrade, but it's not quite as bad as you might think. Yes, the Oakland Coliseum had the third-best park factor for pitchers, but Yankee Stadium is the 11th-best in baseball using the three-year rolling average found on Baseball Savant. Yankee Stadium allows more home runs per season than your average park, but actually suppresses singles, doubles, and triples and scoring in general.
Montas has allowed 12 home runs this year and gave up 20 last year. He's going to give up some long balls to lefties, but that just comes with the territory and the type of pitcher that he is. He's only made one career start in the Bronx, earlier this season when he pitched very effectively against the Yankees.
Can He Handle It?
Some guys have struggled after arriving in the bright lights of the big city. One former Oakland pitcher who did so and comes to mind would be Sonny Gray. There was no real explanation as to why Gray's numbers took a big hit in New York, and he's been an effective pitcher since leaving both in Cincinnati and this year in Minnesota. There's no way of knowing if Montas might struggle under the added pressure of pitching more meaningful games, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
He doesn't have much postseason experience and he is still relatively young, but he's been a really good pitcher in the big leagues now for several seasons. I'd like to think he's probably pretty excited to get the chance to pitch for a World Series contender, but nerves can get the best of anyone. We won't have to wait long to find out, but I am guessing he will probably just fine.
Conclusion
I don't see any real reason to think that Montas can't continue his current level of production, or even improve a tad, as a Yankee. The park downgrade is mild and the run support upgrade is massive. He's been a reliable fantasy asset now for a year and a half and the only real concerns would be his health (but every pitcher has those) and the mental aspect of having to pitch more meaningful games (something we really can't quantify).
I would expect him to maintain his production as a member of the Yankees and who knows, we might even see him thrive as the Robin to Gerrit Cole's Batman down the stretch and into the playoffs.
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