This offseason, the Cincinnati Reds attempted to reunite with Sonny Gray before he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals. Gray, who finished second in voting for the American League Cy Young Award last year, would have been a significant upgrade to the fledgling Reds starting rotation, and for a club with ‘limited’ resources to pursue a player who eventually signed for $75 million guaranteed, rotation help was clearly their top priority.
The Reds did not acquire Gray. The Reds did, however, acquire Frankie Montas, and at a somewhat reduced amount due to the dangerous nature of his shoulder during the 2023 season. If he is right again, and all evidence point to that being the situation right now,
Prior to being dealt to the New York Yankees in the summer of 2022 – the same Yankees pitching philosophy that nearly destroyed Sonny, you will recall – Montas had established himself as an upper-echelon starter with Oakland. From the start of the 2021 season until the end of July 2022 (when Montas was dealt), he was the 14th most valuable SP in the game, with 5.9 fWAR (among qualified pitchers), one spot behind Cincinnati’s own Luis Castillo (13th, 6.0 fWAR). That was better than Lucas Giolito, Charlie Morton, and Jordan Montgomery.
If that’s the person the Reds acquired after missing almost all of last season due to a shoulder injury, they got a great deal. More crucially, they obtained a player who could end up recording numbers comparable to or better than Gray, who is now the ace of their division opponents.
Montas makes his Cactus League debut this afternoon against the Chicago Cubs in Mesa, with the first pitch scheduled for 3:05 PM ET. If you have access to MLB.tv, you can watch it via the Cubs feed.
