Jordan Montgomery waited until nearly the last minute to sign this offseason, but he finally found his home for the 2024 season.
On Tuesday, just days before Opening Day, Montgomery signed a one-year, $25 million deal with the defending National League champion Arizona Diamondbacks. He has a vesting option for the 2025 season, too.
Montgomery was the last of the major free agents to sign a contract, and he, like the other major Scott Boras clients, took short-term, high AAV deals as opposed to the long-term deals they were seeking to start free agency.
Nonetheless, Montgomery finally has his deal and will be looking to help the Diamondbacks get back to the World Series. Last year, Montgomery was on the other side of things, as his Texas Rangers beat Arizona in the Fall Classic.
In the wake of the Montgomery deal, more information regarding his free-agent preferences has started to surface.
Montgomery had a few suitors vying for his services — including the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox — but according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Montgomery didn't want to sign with one of them.
Heyman writes: "... while the Red Sox aren't known to have made a concrete offer, it turns out Montgomery preferred not to go there, anyway. There had been speculation that he might like Boston since his wife was training as a doctor at Beth Israel in affiliation with Harvard. But his wife is transferring to Vanderbilt, and word is, Montgomery didn't love the Red Sox because he wants to win."
If Montgomery wanted to win, the Red Sox definitely weren't the best option.
Boston is coming off a 2023 season in which they went 78-84, and finished in last place in the AL East.
Conversely, the Diamondbacks had a surprise run to the World Series after going 84-78 in the regular season and just barely sneaking in as the final National League Wild Card team.
However, once they got to the postseason, their record didn't matter.
The Diamondbacks swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the Wild Card round and swept the 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Divisional Series.
Then, they beat the Philadelphia Phillies in seven games in the NLCS en route to their first World Series appearance since 2001.
Montgomery was one of the big reasons why Texas won the World Series, as he went 3-1 in the 2023 postseason with a 2.90 ERA.
Now, he joins a loaded Diamondbacks roster and rotation and will look to get them back to the World Series for the second straight season.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Noah Camras graduated from USC in 2022 with a B.A. in Journalism and minor in Sports Media Studies. He's worked ... Read more
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