Tampa Bay Has Done It Again
The Rays Have Developed Another Lethal Arm In Their Pitching Factory
After recently converting into a Relief Pitcher late last season in the minor leagues, LHP Mason Montgomery has become one of the most lethal relievers in Major League Baseball.
Kyle Snyder, Rick Knapp, Kris Goodman, and the rest of the development staff have done an excellent job when it comes to pitching and it seems they have pulled off another magic trick with Montgomery. Ignorant fans could argue that a ton of Tommy John surgeries have also come out of this system, but needless to say, the pitching in Tampa has been outstanding over the last few years.
Once the Rays decided to deploy Montgomery as a reliever last year on August 8th, he went on to strike out 20 of 38 (53%) batters he faced. Following this impressive run, Tampa decided to call him up to the bigs, and he went on to strike out 17 of 37 (46%) hitters that he went up against at the end of the season.
Montgomery attacks opposing hitters with a two-pitch mix that consists of his Four-Seam fastball and a Slider. He is currently generating a 31.3 Whiff% with his Four-Seamer, on top of a 37.5 Whiff% with his Slider. Possessing two pitches that generate over 31 Whiff% is outstanding, imagine if he develops a third over the next year.
Montgomery is only 24 years old, and he looks incredible out of the pen since being called up to the majors. As you can see in the graphic above, his 4-Seamer comes in on average at 99.8 MPH! He is doing that while keeping the ball high and outside against righties and keeping inside against lefties. This is an incredibly hard pitch to hit at that velocity.
He uses his Slider about 36% of the time, and that is coming in at 89.9 MPH on average. Let’s just say this is not a fun at-bat for opposing hitters. His ground ball percentage (GB%) stands at 50% so far this season meaning only 50% of his contact allowed is yielding a mix of Fly Balls, Line Drives, and Pop-Ups.
Stats:
Minors - 3.79 ERA | 346.2 IP | 440 K | 92 G
2024 - 0.4 WAR | 1.86 ERA | 9.2 IP | 17 K | 9 G
2025 - 0.1 WAR | 0.00 ERA | 2 IP | 4 K | 2 G
Although Montgomery does not have a ton of data from his time in the big leagues, his stats are impressive, to say the least. I am all in on the Montgomery breakout and think he can take over as the Rays Closer, especially if Peter Fairbanks misses time due to injury. The Texas Tech product looks sharp so far, but he will have his work cut out for him as hitters learn how to adjust.
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