The Diamondbacks came up just shy of the postseason. Arizona missed out on the final Wild Card spot via tiebreaker after the Mets and Braves split Monday’s doubleheader to each punch their ticket. In the immediate aftermath of that disappointment, the club’s owner provided a scathing criticism of one of the team’s biggest offseason moves.
Owner Ken Kendrick appeared on The Burns & Gambo Show on Monday afternoon. Asked about the team’s late free agent pickup of Jordan Montgomery, the owner both took responsibility for the signing while not holding back with an indictment of the southpaw’s performance.
“If anyone wants to blame anyone for Jordan Montgomery being a Diamondback, you’re talking to the guy that should be blamed,” Kendrick said (starting around the 12:45 mark). “Because I brought it to (the front office’s) attention. I pushed for it. They agreed to it. It wasn’t in our game plan. … And looking back, in hindsight, a horrible decision to have invested that money in a guy that performed as poorly as he did. It’s our biggest mistake this season from a talent standpoint. And I’m the perpetrator of that.”
It’s the kind of public criticism that an owner rarely levels at a player who remains on the roster. Montgomery’s $25MM deal contained a vesting player option for the upcoming season. That was initially valued at $20MM and the veteran pushed that to $22.5MM by reaching 18 starts. He’s certainly not going to walk away from that sum after this season, so he’ll at least go into the offseason on the Arizona roster.
Montgomery’s 2024 campaign was very underwhelming. He allowed a 6.23 earned run average through 117 innings while striking out a career-low 15.6% of batters faced. Montgomery had an ERA above 5.00 in every month from May onward. He lost his spot in the rotation late in the year when Ryne Nelson outperformed him for the fifth starter job. Montgomery stepped back into the rotation with Nelson on the injured list in the season’s final couple weeks. He allowed three runs without completing five innings in either of his final two starts — games which Arizona dropped in Colorado and Milwaukee respectively.
Kendrick certainly isn’t alone in being frustrated with Montgomery’s performance. It’s nevertheless surprising to see an owner publicly call a free agent signing “a horrible decision” while that player is still on the team.
General manager Mike Hazen conducted his annual end-of-season press conference on Tuesday. As one would expect, the GM took a more diplomatic tone when asked about Kendrick’s statement. Hazen began by stating that as the leader of baseball operations, he is “ultimately responsible to say no … or yes to a lot of things” (relayed on X by Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports). The GM called the Montgomery signing “a group process” before stating that he expects better results in 2025. “Whatever myriad of factors went into this year … it didn’t work out. It didn’t work out, but I also think next year is going to look a lot different,” Hazen concluded.
The GM’s comments are far more typical in these kinds of situations. Even if the Montgomery signing was driven by ownership, Hazen isn’t likely to take a public jab at Kendrick. One can debate how sincerely Hazen expects Montgomery to rebound, though it’s hard to imagine he won’t improve to some extent. Before this season, the 6’6″ lefty had been one of the more consistent pitchers in MLB. He posted a sub-4.00 ERA with 30+ starts in each year from 2021-23. Montgomery’s late signing deprived him of a normal Spring Training.
In August, Montgomery opined that former agent Scott Boras “kind of butchered” his free agency. That’s presumably a reference both to the one-year guarantee that fell well shy of expectations and his late landing in the desert. Montgomery changed his representation within weeks of signing with Arizona.
Kendrick’s comments figure to further speculation that the D-Backs could try to trade Montgomery this offseason. That’d probably have a goal for the front office in either case. They’re not going to find anyone willing to take on his entire salary, but the Snakes could try to explore an undesirable contract swap of some kind. Arizona goes into the offseason with a projected rotation of Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Brandon Pfaadt, Eduardo Rodriguez and Nelson. That’s a talented group on paper, but only Gallen and Nelson performed up to expectations late in the year. Pfaadt posted an ERA near 6.00 after the All-Star Break, while Rodriguez and Kelly battled shoulder injuries and didn’t pitch at their typical level during the playoff push.
₩arkMohlers
Really shows faith in Montgomery for next year.
“I never should have signed that loser”
-Kendrick
johnsilver
Pretty obvious why he went off on him like that.. Trying to embarrass him into putting forth some kind of effort in 25 and at the same time? hendricks get something of actual value for the (then) 45m chucked at Montgomery.
My 2c is 1st thing Monty needs to do and thhink he already sort of realizes it is dump the all for himself/ego agent he had hired previously and find 1 without a head 5 hat sizes too large than required.
DashaToushu
@John
“Trying to embarrass him into putting forth some kind of effort in 25 ”
I don’t know Montgomery. But, almost universally embarrassing people isn’t the best way to motivate them.
FSF
If I were the Yanks, I’d do Stanton for Montgomery and pick up most of Stanton’s overage.
₩arkMohlers
Isn’t that eating like $40 million for 1 year of Montgomery and 2 years of a 40 man slot?
Plus the no trade
labial
That’s a solid fit
YankeesBleacherCreature
The Yankees have (presumably) Cole, Rodon, Stroman, Gil, Cortes, and Schmidt under contract for next season. I’m not sure Monty is an upgrade over any of them at this point. Then are Beeter, Poteet, and Warren waiting in the wings. Stanton has a full no-trade clause and likes NY.
DashaToushu
@Yankees
“I’m not sure Monty is an upgrade over any of them at this point”
I’m not sure that he’s not
All of them were pretty average this year. All with xFIP- between 96 and 111.
Even with this terrible year Montgomery was at 115. He was been 70 and 92 the previous 5 seasons.
Crash_n_burn
The best way for Montgomery to get revenge so to speak on the owner is to come into spring training next season ready to go and pitch to his usual self, then as a FA say bye bye to Az and move on unless they trade him for a salary dump or exchange of bad contracts.
Cleon Jones
Well said
SeanStL
The owner doesn’t deserve that. I hope he gets traded and then does amazing.
SweetBabyRayKingsThickThighs
Monty will be jettisoned off to some rebuilding club in a salary dump
Breezy
And then we’ll get the apology statement in a day or two for shootin off at the mouth, if it hasn’t happened already.
playhard9
Hope Jordan can get back on track next season for the Dbacks or elsewhere. He got mixed up with Boras who over-valued him and missed spring trading which kept him from getting on track all year. Owners comments seem unnecessarily personal and unwise. Jordan is a class act and he should be better next season.
DashaToushu
@playhard
“Owners comments seem unnecessarily personal and unwise”
This. Maybe there’s some context missing there, but, yikes. What a jerk? Idiot? Both? Take your pick.
No one was expecting Montgomery to perform this poorly this year. So, “it didn’t work out like we expected and look forward to a better year next year” was probably the way to go.
yeasties
@DashaToushu maybe, but is he inherently wrong? Your response is exactly why so many owners, executives and players refuse to talk to the media in the first place.
I take a different view. The owner actually talked to the media, live! Provided a mea culpa and gave honest and blunt opinions! That stands out for its rarity these days. I would rather have more of that than fluff PR-speak press statements that we fans typically get.
DashaToushu
@Yeasties
“The owner actually talked to the media, live! Provided a mea culpa”
Sure. Let Kendrick say that he was the guy pushing for the signing. Hell, let him say that his F/O advised him against it – if that’s the case.
But, this
“And looking back, in hindsight, a horrible decision to have invested that money in a guy that performed as poorly as he did. It’s our biggest mistake this season from a talent standpoint.”
No need to dig on Montgomery’s talent. The talent is there. The performance wasn’t.
And this
“gave honest”
What he said wasn’t true. What was true was that the team expected Montgomery to pitch better than he did.
Let Kendrick take responsibility for the signing – sure. No problem. Digging a player’s talent in the media – nah.
Ranger Danger19
I’d trade Jon Gray to the snakes right now to get him back. The track record is strong and I believe he’ll rebound with a normal offseason.
DashaToushu
@Ranger
“I’d trade Jon Gray to the snakes right now to get him back.”
As a Dodger fan, I’d prefer that they didn’t
“I believe he’ll rebound ”
Agreed
Melchez17
Tigers could send Maeda for Montgomery. I trust Fetter could bring Montgomery back. Maeda is washed up. Maeda is owed $10 mil… Montgomery $25 mil. Tigers would have to throw in a prospect or bullpen arm.
DashaToushu
@Mel
“Tigers could send Maeda for Montgomery”
As a Dodger fan, I’m fine with this
YankeesBleacherCreature
If Kendrick wants to trade Monty, why even say these things as if he’s incapable of turning things around and broadcasting to other teams that Monty can’t be a $25MM pitcher? Sheesh. Even Arte Moreno has exercised greater discretion regarding Anthony Rendon.
Gmen777
This is one of the strangest things I’ve seen. Almost like the owner thinks his comments moght get Monty to decline the player option.
genre99
Kendrick falls just short of Ray Kroc, the original owner of the padres, who famously, after another padres loss, commandeered the Jack Murphy Stadium PA system and apologized for the pathetic padres’ performance.
davemlaw
This is one of the greatest comments by an owner ever.
Complete honesty and disgust at himself. It’s so funny.
I hope Monty returns to normal and everyone can laugh this one off. Otherwise, he’s going to have a miserable 2025 with those comments hanging over his head.
DashaToushu
@Dave
“This is one of the greatest comments by an owner ever.
Complete honesty and disgust at himself. ”
But why should he have disgust at himself?
Why not just say, “I pushed for the signing of Montgomery, and it didn’t go as expected in the first year”. That’s *more true* and not as rude as bashing Montgomery’s talent.
Rsox
Well, they just significantly tanked his trade value. Part of Montgomery’s bad performance was (like Snell) no spring training and giving him less than 8 innings in AAA to get ready. Perhaps with more time to ramp up the outcome may have been different, or not. Either way trash talking his performance publicly was probably not the most professional move