Many Rangers followers have thought all through the offseason that an eventual reunion with left-hander Jordan Montgomery made good sense and would characterize the workforce’s large splash in free company this winter. Reporting connecting the 2 sides has been sparse, nevertheless, exterior of common hypothesis on the energy of the match and the Rangers’ want for sturdy innings. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning Information casts much more doubt on the Rangers’ probabilities of re-signing Montgomery in his newest mailbag column.
Grant has written beforehand {that a} deal between the 2 sides doesn’t appear seemingly, although some Rangers followers would possibly’ve hoped that the latest decision of the workforce’s tv state of affairs for the 2024 season would possibly deliver a few long-awaited settlement. A deal nonetheless appears like a attain, Grant suggests, rightly declaring that given the workforce’s present luxurious tax standing, Montgomery would seemingly price the Rangers greater than $30MM this season. Texas shall be a second-time luxurious payor this season and already has $243MM of projected luxurious obligations, per Roster Useful resource. They’ll pay a 30% tax on any {dollars} as much as $257MM, plus a 42% tax on the subsequent $20MM they spend.
That outlook doesn’t essentially imply the Rangers can’t usher in Montgomery beneath any circumstances, however the workforce has operated with bit of economic restraint all through the winter. Signing Montgomery would imply pushing their 2025 contractual commitments to round $160MM a full yr prematurely and would give the Rangers effectively over $100MM in ensures on the books as far out as 2027. (At present, they’ve $94.5MM dedicated to the 2027 roster.)
Moreover, WEEI’s Rob Bradford experiences that the Rangers haven’t been “actively concerned” in Montgomery’s marketplace for a while now because of the lefty’s price ticket. Once more, that doesn’t shut the door totally, nevertheless it’s one other indicator {that a} Rangers/Montgomery reunion is hardly the fait accompli that some have steered it to be.
If not Texas, there are a handful of different groups which have been related to Montgomery — the Giants, Angels, Yankees, Purple Sox and Phillies amongst them. Jon Heyman of the New York Publish writes that the Angels stay in touch with Montgomery and agent Scott Boras (who additionally reps Blake Snell). The Angels at present challenge for a $173MM payroll — about $40MM shy of final yr’s franchise-record mark — and are almost $50MM from the primary luxurious tax threshold. Proprietor Arte Moreno has traditionally averted long-term offers for pitchers, nevertheless, and Heyman suggests he’s but to green-light his entrance workplace on the addition of a pitcher of this caliber.
On the Phillies, particularly, USA In the present day’s Bob Nightengale wrote not too long ago that a number of executives across the league suspect the Phillies could also be ready to see if the worth level on any of the remaining top-tier free brokers drops to the purpose the place they’ll make an opportunistic addition.
That’s largely speculative from what looks like a sequence of non-Phillies sources, nevertheless it’s price noting that Philadelphia president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski a minimum of alluded to one thing alongside these traces in a radio look on Wednesday. Dombrowski famous that he’s comfortable along with his rotation and along with his lineup but in addition wouldn’t definitively rule out making one other addition if the circumstances change into favorable sufficient: “I can’t inform you that any person doesn’t fall into your lap in some unspecified time in the future the place you say, ’Gee, that’s a chance we are able to’t flip down,’” the Phillies’ president acknowledged on 94 WIP.
As with the Rangers, the Phillies are projected luxurious tax payors. They’re $5MM from the second threshold and, as a third-time payor, would pay a 50% tax on their subsequent roughly $5MM after which 62% on the subsequent $20MM after that. Signing Montgomery at a $25MM AAV, as an example, would price the Phils $14.9MM in taxes (almost $40MM in whole for this season alone, assuming a fair distribution of the yearly salaries in that theoretical state of affairs). Maybe if Montgomery’s value drops and the Phillies start to lose confidence of their potential to increase Zack Wheeler, which may start to sound extra palatable, however signing him can be a fairly pricey endeavor in the intervening time, given the workforce’s tax outlook.
Montgomery, 31, has made a minimum of 30 begins in every of the previous three seasons. In that point, he’s pitched 524 1/3 innings of three.48 ERA ball with a 22.5% strikeout price, a 6.2% stroll price, a 44.5% ground-ball price and simply 1.00 HR/9. His 2023 marketing campaign was arguably the best of his profession, that includes a personal-best 188 2/3 innings of three.20 ERA ball, plus one other 31 innings of two.90 ERA ball within the postseason — a robust efficiency that helped push the Rangers to their first-ever World Collection title.