The 2023-24 offseason has been an interesting one for baseball fans. The Los Angeles Dodgers spent over $1 billion in contracts they’ll be paying for a long while, while the rest of the league has seen some bold and often head-scratching moves. The St. Louis Cardinals filled their rotation with old men while the Kansas City Royals have committed over $100 million to players for the next few years. Perhaps one of the more surprising teams actively engaged in the free agent market has been the Cincinnati Reds.

The Reds made the surprising move to sign switch-hitting infielder Jeimer Candelario to a three-year deal, while also signing both right-handed pitcher Nick Martinez as well reliever Emilio Pagan on two-year deals. There has been a lot of activity across the board for the team in an active offseason, but perhaps the most interesting, perplexing even, move was the signing of starting pitcher Frankie Montas to a one-year $16 million deal with a $20 million mutual option for the 2025 season. Montas has been an effective pitcher in the past, but did the Reds overpay for his services?

I raise this question due to the fact that Montas essentially missed the entire 2023 season due to arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder, pitching just 1 1/3 innings in relief at the end of the season. Shoulder injuries had also hindered him when he arrived with the Yankees via trade in 2022, limiting him to just 39 1/3 innings where he struggled to a 6.35 ERA, that he tried to pitch through. $16 million is a lot of money to commit to a pitcher who has tossed just one big league inning since September 20, 2023. The price tag however seems more like an investment in potential than a response to his situation.

“I know he has an injury history, but we were going to bring him in for a physical anyway,” Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said following the signing. “So we brought him in, did the physical and felt good about where he has been. He’s been a very good Major League pitcher in the past and he has a ton of upside to get back to where he was. If he’s that guy again, he’s a toward-the-top-of-the-rotation type guy.”

Montas has shown glimpses of that promise over the course of his eight seasons in the Majors. After debuting in 2015, Montas slowly began to establish himself with the Oakland Athletics in 2017 while working out the bullpen. The results weren’t pretty but the following two seasons would show that he had that top-of-the-rotation potential. During the 2018-19 seasons, Montas posted a 3.13 ERA over 161 innings for Oakland, yet the latter season was cut short by an 80-game PED suspension. He would struggle again in the 2020 season to the tune of a 5.60 ERA but would emerge as a top-tier starter during the 2021 season.

In 32 starts, Montas tossed 187 innings and posted a 3.37 ERA with 207 strikeouts against 57 walks. He would finish sixth in the AL Cy Young Award voting, showing that the 28-year-old may have finally arrived. 2022 was more of the same in Oakland where before the trade to New York, Montas had a 3.18 ERA over 104 2/3 innings.

No doubt that Montas can help the Reds rotation, should he be healthy and return to form before his shoulder injuries. Much is going to be dependent on the workload he will be able to sustain over the course of the 2024 season. Shoulder injuries are a nasty business for any pitcher to endure. Unlike an elbow, the method to fix a shoulder isn’t as simple and the measures to rehab it and will never guarantee that the shoulder or the pitcher will ever be the same again. Many careers have been derailed due to shoulder problems, but Montas does at least appear healthy according to physicals and capable of competing at a high level once again.

In the minuscule sample size of 2023, there was a notable dip in average velocity on all of Montas’s pitches. His fastball was two ticks slower as was his sinker compared to 2022 or 2021. That will be worth the most attention for both Montas and the Reds in 2024 as he works through the season. Making sure that his arsenal doesn’t see a dramatic dropoff in the wake of the shoulder troubles will be paramount to making sure that the signing actually pays off in the end. Montas is going to throw strikes and pound the zone, but will he be able to mix and match his pitches to sequence and take advantage of his abilities?

A shoulder injury could also have led him to alter his mechanics in some ways, even minor imperceivable ways, which could have drastic effects on his effectiveness as a pitcher. A slider that was once sharp and down could end up left over the plate, and with his home field now being the home run-friendly Great American Ballpark, he’ll have to be careful that he continues to his ability to limit fly balls and home runs.

So, is $16 million an overpay by the Reds for Frankie Montas? On paper and at first glance, I would still say that it is, but also acknowledge the nature of the free agent market for pitchers now. Every team needs starting pitching, therefore the demand has caused prices to ascend each year. Good pitching is going to cost teams at least $10 million for a single season. It’s a risk-and-reward system of the market where the players are going to benefit, but you can now take chances on a single season without getting locked up in a multi-year contract. Should Montas return to form, it will be seen as a victory for the Reds and could set up Montas to return to the open market for a larger deal in 2025. It’s a gamble for sure, but the Reds are confident in this move and are poised to make a bid for the crown in the NL Central.