2025 Mets Pitching Preview: Frankie Montas
Next up on the 2025 Pitching Preview is Frankie Montas. Montas is one of the new additions to the Mets this season. He spent his 2024 season with the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers and compiled a total stat line of 7-11 with a 4.84 ERA. Montas enjoyed more success in the later part of the season with the Brewers, tracking a 3-3 record with a 4.55 ERA. He was a teammate of Sean Manaea during their time with the Athletics, so it will be interesting to see how their off-field chemistry can influence their on-field performance.
Montas utilizes a five-pitch arsenal consisting of a sinker, splitter, four-seam fastball, cutter, and slider. While he used his four-seamer the most at a 33.2% rate, what is most interesting is how he used the rest of his pitches. Montas had a pretty even distribution for the rest of his pitches, throwing his sinker at 19.1%, his cutter at 18.7%, his splitter at 18.3%, and his slider at 10.7%. This shows that Montas liked to use his repertoire against batters to keep them off-balance. As can be seen from the graph titled Pitch Usage in Last 5 Games, all of his pitches down the stretch were used, and all were usedbetween 15% – 35%. Another interesting statistic is that Montas whips his pitches when throwing. The average spin rate for all of his pitches, aside from his splitter, was over 2200 revolutions per minute.
Montas’s most successful pitch seemed to be his splitter. The splitter tallied a 16.8% swing and miss rate, meaning many batters were not making contact. It also held the lowest average exit velocity at 77.3 mph and the lowest launch angle of 1.3 degrees. This means that when batters connected, they made weak contact, and most of the time would result in ground balls.
There are some areas of concern with Montas. First and foremost, his health is in question. Montas got bit by the injury bug during spring training, suffering a high-grade lat strain. This will sideline him until at least mid-May. He also had some alarming statistics last year. Montas had an above-average ERA. The league average, according to Baseball Reference, was 4.07; Montas’ was 4.84. He was also above the league average in BB/9 (3.1 League compared to 3.94 Montas) and WHIP (1.27 League compared to 1.37 Montas). It seemed like Montas’s fastball got him into trouble on occasion with an average launch angle of 30.3, which is an optimal home run launch angle.
Montas could result in a solid back end of the pitching rotation for the Mets. He has a strong repertoire which he can utilize in his starts. He did perform better at the end of the 2024 season, so hopefully, he can emulate that success upon his return in 2025. As far as intangibles, he has a good relationship with Sean Manaea, which can help him assimilate into the Mets culture quickly. It will be interesting to see what comes of this new addition for the 2025 season.
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