An Early Look at Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell

About two months in the past, pitchers and catchers reported to spring coaching, marking a ceremonial finish to the winter and the start of a brand new season. However as gamers confirmed as much as camp and exhibition video games started a pair weeks later, two pitchers have been notably absent.

Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, our fifth and sixth ranked free brokers coming into the offseason, every signed contracts dangerously near the beginning of the season, with the latter coming off the market simply two days previous to Opening Day. Each needed to accept a lot shorter-term offers than they have been anticipating, with mixed ensures undershooting our crowdsourced projections by $188 million.

As the primary to signal, Snell was the primary to make his debut, beginning the Giants’ eleventh recreation of the 12 months after pitching in simulated video games in opposition to his teammates. Montgomery reported to Triple-A, making two begins in Reno earlier than being activated by the large membership final Friday. His first begin of the 12 months, curiously, got here in opposition to the Giants and reverse Blake Snell, so it provided an early have a look at how this unconventional offseason may need impacted every pitcher.

Snell vs. Montgomery was an thrilling matchup due to their monitor data of excellence and the intrigue surrounding their offseasons, but additionally one which got here with many unknowns. How would Montgomery fare in his first main league motion of the season? Would Snell bounce again after two consecutive poor outings? How a lot rust would every take care of after a month of ramp up time?

Snell’s high of the primary inning was comparatively uneventful; he used his slider and changeup to report three straight outs after a leadoff single. Subsequent, it was Montgomery’s flip to face a Giants lineup stacked with right-handed platoon hitters like Austin Slater and Tom Murphy. Slater led off, and Montgomery’s first providing of the 12 months was a sinker that clocked in at 91.4 mph, two ticks shy of final 12 months’s common. He sat in that velocity band all through the sport, a symptom of the late begin to his spring. Slater ultimately grounded out on a curveball low within the zone, and the subsequent two hitters have been additionally retired on routine grounders.

Outdoors of being left-handed pitchers on short-term contracts, Snell and Montgomery have little in frequent, particularly with respect to their pitching types. Snell refuses to evolve to the so-called strike zone, quickly altering batters’ eye ranges with fastballs above it and breaking balls beneath it. His model of high-strikeout, high-walk baseball has netted him two Cy Younger awards, although he ran a extra pedestrian 96 ERA- throughout the 4 seasons separating them. Montgomery, then again, prefers to reside within the zone together with his plus command and arsenal of downward-breaking pitches. He’s by no means reached the heights of Snell’s peak years, however has outproduced him by WAR over the previous three years.

Snell pitched a clear second inning, capped off by a seven-pitch showdown in opposition to Gabriel Moreno. After falling behind within the depend 3-1, he acquired Moreno to swing and miss beneath the zone, then foul off the subsequent pitch to maintain the depend full. He threw two fastballs and 4 sliders to get right here. So what did he do subsequent?

That is an instance of Snell at his finest, the model that is aware of the place every pitch goes even when not throwing strikes. Primed for a fastball or slider that might have ended up down the center had it been aimed on the identical spot out of the hand, Moreno went down on a curveball that dropped two toes greater than any of Snell’s different pitches. Final season, Snell’s 310 swinging strikes on out-of-zone pitches ranked second in baseball, and most of them got here on breaking balls that tunneled nicely together with his fastball earlier than falling off the desk.

Sadly, Snell didn’t execute this technique for the remainder of his begin, as too many choices leaked over the center of the plate. Within the third, a slider and changeup down the center resulted in loud contact from Blaze Alexander and Ketel Marte. Within the fourth, Alexander struck once more, this time in opposition to the fastball. Snell allowed 4 extra hits within the fifth earlier than being pulled mid-inning, failing to finish 5 frames for the third consecutive begin. The Diamondbacks collected 9 hits, essentially the most he’s allowed in a begin since 2019.

A lot of the hits Snell allowed have been the results of the Diamondbacks capitalizing on pitches down the center, which have been uncharacteristically frequent from somebody whose pitches are likely to magnetize away from the zone. However on this three-start pattern, Snell has been leaving extra pitches over the center of the plate, leading to each extra loud contact and fewer swinging strikes within the zone.

Whereas Snell’s command actually isn’t the place it was final 12 months, Montgomery had no such points finding his pitches all through his begin. He landed a powerful 23 of his 30 sinkers within the strike zone, profiting from its excessive groundball charge; batters have slugged below .375 in opposition to in every of the previous two seasons. With a strike-stealing machine in his arsenal, many matchups in opposition to Montgomery led to both an early groundout or a pitcher-friendly depend that allowed him to deploy his curveball and changeup, the latter of which earned 4 of his eight whiffs on the evening. Whereas he spiked just a few curveballs within the filth, he had glorious really feel for finding his changeup, persistently touchdown it on the armside half of the plate.

With out his typical velocity, Montgomery struck out simply three batters (one among which got here on a pitch clock violation). As an alternative, he recorded outs by conserving his pitches away from barrels and limiting the standard of contact in opposition to him, tallying 9 groundouts in six innings of labor whereas permitting a hard-hit charge of simply 32%. Except for a Jorge Soler homer that marked the one blemish on Montgomery’s report, not one of the different batted balls he allowed have been notably threatening; over two-thirds of them had an xBA beneath .200.

One other pattern to look at from Montgomery’s begin was his elevated use of his changeup and curveball. He’s thrown his fastballs about half the time all through his profession, however he dropped that utilization to about 40% in his first recreation with the Diamondbacks. This shift might merely be the results of good advance scouting — Giants’ right-handed hitters at the moment rank twenty eighth in wOBA in opposition to non-fastballs — however it may be a part of Arizona’s teamwide shift towards extra numerous arsenals, particularly from its beginning pitchers. This season, Merrill Kelly has added a slider to his kitchen-sink arsenal whereas Slade Cecconi is throwing way more splitters on the expense of his fastball. Montgomery’s curveball has been a profitable out pitch and will probably generate much more outs if he continues to throw it 30% of the time; throughout his profession, batters have generated a pitiful .177/.209/.307 line in opposition to it.

Montgomery was faraway from the sport after six innings and 78 pitches, and Arizona’s offense teed off within the late innings of the sport, which in the end resulted in a 17-1 wallop. Each beginning pitchers nonetheless have extra ramping as much as do on the large league stage, with Montgomery working again to common season velocity and Snell nonetheless looking for his command after three dangerous outings. That stated, I feel there’s motive to be optimistic about each pitchers. Even with an 11.57 ERA, Snell’s peripherals are almost consistent with final season’s numbers, and he tends to enhance because the 12 months goes on, with a profession FIP almost a run higher within the second half of seasons. Montgomery confirmed off his superior pitchability regardless of his diminished stuff, with a doable arsenal change that might result in enhancements.