Will The Diamondbacks Buy-In Be Enough In The NL West?

In the waning minutes of the 2024 Spring Training, the last of Scott Bora’s ‘Core Four’ free agents has signed with last year’s NL Pennant Winners.

Jordan Montgomery and the Arizona Diamondbacks have agreed on a 1-year deal for $25 million, with a vesting option for a second year. The vesting option will kick in and potentially grow depending on how many starts the big lefty makes this season.

Montgomery became one of the premiere free agents after helping the Rangers win the 2023 World Series as a rental piece acquired at the trade deadline.

After starting the year in St. Louis, Montgomery threw 67.2 innings to the tune of a 2.79 ERA over 11 outings. The southpaw was one of three pitchers in 2023 to have 18 or more starts of 6 IP and 2 ER or less allowed, with just Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell as his company.

This regular season came ahead of a postseason where he threw a team-leading 31 innings pitched with a 2.90 ERA and 17 strikeouts to just 5 walks. Montgomery highlighted his playoff run with three outings in the ALCS, where he recorded 2 wins and allowed just 2 runs in 14 innings.

The longtime Yankees starter was shipped out of New York at the 2022 trade

deadline for Cardinals centerfielder Harrison Bader. The change of scenery instantly improved Montogmery’s numbers in 2022, and once St Louis fell out of playoff contention in 2023, a homecoming for the Texas native made too much sense to pass up on.

Now, Montgomery looks to join the head of the up-and-coming rotation, led by Zac Gallen and Brandon Pfaadt.

Merrill Kelly had the best season of the rotation in 2023, throwing to a 3.29 ERA in 177.2 innings, but the team as a whole was not known for their pitching league-wide. They had the 10th-ranked pitching staff in the National League last year, with a team ERA of 4.48.

With a lineup almost entirely made up of arbitration players, this has allowed the Diamondbacks to spend primarily on their pitching staff. Before signing Montgomery, Arizona signed Eduardo Rodriguez to a 4-year, $80 million contract to potentially round out their rotation. However, due to a lat strain, he has been temporarily shut down.

While Arizona could have been engaged in talks with Montgomery for most of the offseason (due to agent Scott Boras’ patient approach for his clients), Rodriguez’s injury could have been the push to compromise on the pitcher’s asking price.

So, if he joins the rotation or Kelly, Gallen, Pfaadt and presumably Ryne Nelson, could they be enough to stay competitive in a difficult NL West division?

Arizona was obviously able to do just fine despite going through the Wild Card series amidst their pennant run, however dethroning the Dodgers’ in their division ownership is clearly the objective in 2024. And with a lineup featuring last year’s Rookie of the Year in Corbin Carroll, first-time All Star Lourdes Gurriel Jr, and newly acquired slugger Joc Pederson to name a few, they are poised to be a consistently pesky lineup in 2024.

While they may pale in comparison to the star power in Los Angeles and San Diego, the youth of their lineup to develop after being above the mean in batting average, OPS and strikeouts could allow them to not be dominated offensively in the division.

A similar argument can be made for the three team’s starting rotations, however in a position that always tests your depth, Arizona can credit their top-of-the-line pitching development to give them the advantage as well.

With 2023 being the start of the competitive window in Arizona, there are still young arms ready to make their impact this season. Yu-Min Lin and Crisitian Mena are two arms expected to debut this year, with Blake Watson and Slade Cecconi also as names who could impact the big league team.

So, while the Diamondbacks may be picked third or fourth in the division based on premiere names (depending on your view on San Francisco), their ownership believes that the 2023 run was not a fluke, and is buying into the team’s exciting youth.

After the Montgomery singing, the Diamondbacks have now spent a franchise record of $164 million on their squad. It’s a new chapter for the Diamondbacks, who have a respectable franchise history despite being an expansion team.

Now, after taking down the big, bad Dodgers in the 2023 postseason, they will look to go head-to-head with the three-headed monster for the NL West race in 2024.