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Mets Designate Jose Castillo For Assignment

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The Mets announced that left-hander Jose Castillo has been designated for assignment.  Right-hander Chris Devenski was called up from Triple-A Syracuse in the corresponding move.  The transaction brings Devenski’s fresh arm into the bullpen, as Castillo tossed 47 pitches over a two-inning relief outing in Friday’s 19-9 rout of the Marlins.

Castillo is out of minor league options, and thus this is the fourth time this season he has been DFA’d since has to first clear waivers before being sent to Triple-A.  The first designation came in May when Castillo was still a member of the Diamondbacks, and the Mets then brought the southpaw into the organization via trade.  In Castillo’s previous two DFAs with New York, he cleared waivers and was outrighted to Syracuse.  It stands to reason that the same will happen here, though Castillo has the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency if he wants to explore the open market.

Despite the roster churn, Castillo has pitched quite well during his time in Queens, posting a 2.35 ERA, 53.3% grounder rate, 25.7% strikeout rate, and 8.1% walk rate over 15 1/3 innings with the Mets.  This represents Castillo’s best stretch in the majors since his 2018 rookie season, when he broke into the Show with a 3.29 ERA over 38 1/3 relief innings with the Padres.

However, Castillo tossed just two MLB innings between the 2019-24 seasons, due to a variety of injuries that included a Tommy John surgery.  His bottom-line numbers for New York provide some proof that the 29-year-old can still be effective against big league hitters, even if the Mets see him as an expendable arm.

Mets Sticking With Six-Man Rotation

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The Mets are moving to a six-man rotation for the time being, manager Carlos Mendoza tells reporters (including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). That’ll keep Jonah Tong in the rotation after tonight’s debut. New York will operate with a seven-man bullpen for the next two games but will get an eighth reliever back when active rosters expand on Monday.

Tong worked five innings against the Marlins tonight. He gave up four runs, only one of which was earned after the Mets made a pair of errors in the fifth inning. Tong punched out six without issuing a walk while allowing six hits. Completing five innings was all he needed to do to pick up his first big league win. The Mets pounded Miami pitching for 19 runs in a blowout victory.

The Mets now have a pair of rookies in their starting staff. Nolan McLean, called up two weeks ago, has begun his big league career with a trio of fantastic starts. He fired eight scoreless innings against Philadelphia last time out and has allowed only two runs through his first 20 1/3 innings. David Peterson has been their best starter all year, while Kodai Senga and Sean Manaea are surely locked into rotation spots. It wouldn’t have made much sense to call Tong up just for a spot start.

Clay Holmes has a 4.38 ERA with a well below-average 15.8% strikeout rate in eight starts since the All-Star Break. He has only completed six innings once during that stretch. The Mets could’ve considered moving him to the bullpen, where he’ll probably end up in October if they hold onto a playoff spot. That’s not the plan for now, and Holmes is lined up to start in Detroit next Wednesday.

The Mets have a scheduled off day on Thursday. If they don’t make any adjustments to their six-man rotation, Tong’s second MLB start will come a week from now at Great American Ball Park. That’s shaping up to be a big series with the Reds representing the closest thing to a challenger in the Wild Card race. New York has pulled five games clear of Cincinnati, who have dropped four in a row at a very inopportune time.

The final month presents an evaluation opportunity for New York’s coaching staff and front office. They could go in a number of directions with a playoff rotation. Peterson is probably the favorite for a Game One start, but McLean and Tong each have a shot to convince the club that they’re worthy of a postseason start despite their inexperience.

Mets Outright Ty Adcock

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August 28: Adcock went unclaimed and was outrighted off the 40-man roster, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. He’ll remain in Syracuse. That opens the 40-man roster spot for Tong’s promotion tomorrow.

August 26: The Mets have placed right-hander Ty Adcock on waivers, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The Mets haven’t announced the move but they do need to open a 40-man spot for the upcoming promotion of prospect Jonah Tong on Friday, so perhaps the two are related.

Adcock, 28, has a fairly limited big league track record. He has thrown a combined 23 innings over the three most recent seasons with a 5.48 earned run average. His 20.4% strikeout rate in that sample is a bit below par but he has only walked 4.3% of opponents.

His minor league résumé provides a larger batch of data to look at. He has shown some flashes down on the farm but hasn’t been having a great season. From 2022 to 2024, he tossed 57 1/3 innings in the minors with a 4.24 ERA, 26% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate. With Syracuse this year, he has logged 29 Triple-A innings with a 5.28 ERA, 19.2% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate.

Adcock is in his final option season, so he’ll be out of options next year. That would make it harder for him to hold a roster spot through the offseason and into 2026, so he was presumably running out of time.

Despite his lack of results this year, it’s possible some club is attracted to the stuff. His fastball averages in the upper-90s and he also throws a cutter, splitter, sinker and slider. Though he’ll be out of options next year, he is still optionable for the remainder of this season, which could give him appeal to a club in need of some extra bullpen depth. He’ll be postseason eligible with another club if claimed before September 1st.

Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images

Frankie Montas To Undergo UCL Surgery

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Mets right-hander Frankie Montas has a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow and will require surgery, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. It seems unclear exactly what kind of surgery Montas will require but Heyman says it will “very likely” be a full Tommy John, which would wipe out his entire 2026 season. Even a lesser surgery such as an internal brace procedure would put him on the shelf for most of next season.

The news doesn’t come out of nowhere. Montas was placed on the 15-day injured list a few days ago with a UCL injury. Manager Carlos Mendoza described it as “pretty significant” and said Montas would not be returning in 2025. The news of the surgery has more of an impact on 2026, which could go down as a lost season for Montas. A full Tommy John surgery generally requires 14-plus months of rehab. The internal brace alternative can sometimes allow a player to come back around a year later, though even that is a rare outcome.

Time will tell what 2026 has in store for Montas. Either way, his signing is officially a regrettable one for the Mets. Coming into 2025, they gave him a two-year, $34MM guarantee with $17MM salaries in each year and an opt-out after the first season. He suffered a lat strain in February and didn’t make it back to a big league mound until late June. He posted a 6.68 earned run average in seven starts and got moved to the bullpen. After two relief outings, he landed on the IL.

Montas will certainly forego his opt-out chance and keep that $17MM salary on the Mets’ books for next year. For their $34MM investment, they have so far received 38 2/3 innings with a 6.28 ERA. There’s a chance he returns late in 2026 but only for a few outings even in a best-case scenario.

The news doesn’t impact 2025. As mentioned, Montas had already been bumped to the bullpen even before being ruled out for the rest of the year. This means the club won’t be planning on him contributing in 2026 either. Thankfully, next year’s on-paper rotation looks a lot like the current group. Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea, Clay Holmes and David Peterson will all be back next year. Senga’s deal has a post-2025 opt-out but it’s conditional on him pitching 400 innings over the 2023-25 seasons. Since he missed most of last year, he’s only at 280 1/3 and won’t vest that opt-out.

In addition to those four, the Mets are turning to prospects Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong late this year. Either or both could be candidates for next year’s rotation. The same is true of Brandon Sproat, who is in Triple-A. Tylor Megill is currently on the IL but can be retained for 2026 via arbitration. Christian Scott has UCL surgery late in 2024 and could be back in the mix next year.

While it’s not ideal for the Mets to be paying $17MM plus taxes to a pitcher who is out of action, he had seemingly fallen out of their plans regardless. They have plenty of other pitchers and one of the top payrolls in the league, so they can absorb this hit better than most.

For Montas personally, he will eventually return to the open market ahead of the 2027 season, which will be his age-34 campaign. He missed most of 2023 recovering from shoulder surgery, so he won’t have a lot of momentum going into that return to free agency. He will be coming off a four-year stretch from 2023 to 2026 where he was only healthy in 2024 and had a 4.84 ERA that year.

Photo courtesy of Brad Penner, Imagn Images

Francisco Alvarez Suffers Finger Fracture, Still Hopes To Return This Year

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Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez was hit by a pitch on his left pinky finger last night. Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reports that the backstop suffered a break in that finger but still hopes to be able to play in the majors later this year.

Alvarez was already in a challenging situation. He suffered a sprain of his right thumb a little over a week ago. Shortly after suffering that injury, it was reported that he will need surgery to correct it at some point. However, the recovery time from that surgery is six to seven weeks, which would carry well into October if he had it now. Alvarez and the Mets decided to delay the procedure until the offseason as he attempts to rest it enough to play through it.

He began that experiment by starting a rehab assignment last night. He doubled in his first plate appearance, grounded out in the second and then was hit by a pitch in the third. He was removed for a pinch runner and it now appears that he suffered a fracture.

Despite the break, Alvarez evidently feels he can get back on the field. Perhaps that is possible but it’s anyone’s guess what kind of production he can muster with a sprained thumb on his right hand and a fractured pinky on the other hand. He could perhaps heal up a bit but there’s only a month left in the regular season.

It perhaps helps that the club has cracked off three straight victories while the Reds have lost three in a row. That gives the Mets a cushion of 4.5 games and greatly increases their chances of making the playoffs. Instead of rushing Alvarez back for a playoff chase, perhaps they can pump the brakes a bit and focus on getting him healthy for the playoffs.

It’s a tough spot but it’s understandable why the Mets and Alvarez are taking this path. He has a .265/.349/.438 batting line and 125 wRC+ this year, despite an early-season slump which got him sent down to the minors for a little while. With him on the shelf, the Mets are left with Luis Torrens and Hayden Senger as their healthy catchers. Torrens is hitting .218/.282/.320 this year while Senger’s line is .180/.227/.197.

The glovework can be debated but Alvarez clearly has the greatest ability to make a difference with his bat. Perhaps the injuries will be too much of an impediment for him to make a short-term impact but there’s little harm in trying. Even if he doesn’t have the thumb surgery until the season is done, he could still be recovered in time to have a normal spring training in preparation for 2026.

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images

Mets To Promote Jonah Tong

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3:03pm: Mets manager Carlos Mendoza confirmed that Tong will be promoted and make his major league debut against the Marlins this Friday, per ESPN’s Jorge Castillo.

2:46pm: The Mets are set to promote top pitching prospect Jonah Tong for his major league debut, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. They’ll need to clear space on both the 40-man and 26-man rosters in order to formally select his contract from Triple-A Syracuse. Tong will be used as a starter, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

Tong, 22, has been one of the best pitchers in all of Minor League Baseball in 2025. His stock has soared accordingly, and he’s leapfrogged Syracuse teammate Brandon Sproat as the top yet-to-debut pitching prospect in the Mets organization. He’ll join another ballyhooed young righty, Nolan McLean, in what amounts to a late-season youth movement for a Mets club that has seen veteran starters like Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Tylor Megill, Paul Blackburn and Griffin Canning struggle and/or miss significant time due to injury.

A seventh-round pick back in 2022, Tong opened the current season in Double-A and posted a video-game-esque 1.59 ERA and 40.8% strikeout rate in 102 innings there. That earned him a bump to Triple-A, where he’s some improved. Tong has tossed 11 2/3 scoreless innings with the Mets’ top affiliate, allowing only eight hits and three walks (6.7%) while punching out 17 of 45 opponents (37.8%).

Tong’s dominant season has catapulted him toward the top of the Mets’ prospect rankings and into the elite tier of leaguewide prospects. Baseball America ranks the 6’1″, 180-pound righty as the sport’s No. 42 overall prospect, and Tong sits 44th at MLB.com. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel has Tong up at No. 21 on the updated top-100 list he released earlier this week.

That slight frame, Tong’s arm slot and his usage of a plus changeup invoke some comparisons to former Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum, though his overall delivery isn’t nearly as violent. Scouting reports on Tong typically cite him sitting 92-94 mph with elite induced vertical break, but he’s averaged 95.7 mph in his pair of Triple-A outings thus far. That previously mentioned changeup, which sits in the mid-80s, has been Tong’s go-to secondary offering and misses bats in droves. He also mixes in a curveball in the upper 70s and a slider that sits 87 mph.

Since he was called up after Aug. 15, Tong cannot accrue 45 days of service time this year and will thus retain his rookie eligibility heading into the 2026 campaign. That will qualify him for MLB’s Prospect Promotion Incentive program, meaning he could net the Mets a compensatory pick if he breaks camp with next year’s team and wins NL Rookie of the Year — or if he finishes top-three in Cy Young or MVP voting in any of his first three full MLB seasons. In terms of club control, the Mets can keep Tong all the way through the 2031 season, and he wouldn’t qualify for arbitration until the 2028-29 offseason.

While Tong is very arguably already one of the best 13 pitchers in the Mets system and thus deserving of a chance to help the team push into the postseason, the late promotion also offers Mets faithful a glimpse at the future. Tong and McLean will have the opportunity to join Kodai Senga, David Peterson, Clay Holmes and Manaea as rotation arms moving forward. Sproat and former top prospect Christian Scott, who’s on the mend from last summer’s Tommy John surgery, only further add to that impressive crop of pitching.

It’s not yet clear exactly how New York will work all of those arms onto the staff, but that’s an issue for a future day. For the time being, the focus will be on Tong stepping into the heat of a playoff race, looking to continue his meteoric ascent and, ideally, impressing enough to position himself as a core piece in Queens.

Francisco Alvarez To Begin Rehab Assignment

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Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez has resumed swinging a bat and is expected to begin a minor league rehab assignment this week, writes MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. It’d be a remarkably quick return for the 23-year-old, who suffered a torn ligament in his right thumb earlier this month. Manager Carlos Mendoza expressed shock when he was sent video of Alvarez already swinging a bat this past Sunday. “When I was looking at it, I was like, ’There’s no way this guy is swinging the bat,'” said Mendoza.

Alvarez will require surgery after the season, but he’ll gut out the injury to the extent that he’s able to tolerate the pain it causes. DiComo notes that the Mets would prefer to use him behind the plate rather than at designated hitter, where Starling Marte has been swinging a blistering hot bat for the past few weeks, but the team won’t rule out the possibility of Alvarez mixing in at DH.

The mere notion of Alvarez returning in short order seemed outlandish at the time of his IL placement and the revelation that he’d require eventual surgery. However, given the production he’d turned in prior to suffering that injury on a slide into second base, it’s not a surprise that the Mets are looking at an aggressive timetable. Alvarez struggled enough early this season to find himself demoted to Triple-A in late June, but he returned a month later and exploded with a .323/.408/.645 batting line in 71 plate appearances before incurring his ill-timed injury.

Certainly, it’d be a lot to expect Alvarez to replicate or even approximate that level of play. That said, there’s a fairly low bar to clear behind the plate — at least from an offensive standpoint. Luis Torrens is hitting just .221/.282/.324 in 241 plate appearances this season, while rookie Hayden Senger has slashed .172/.210/.190 in his first 63 big league plate appearances.

A quick turnaround for Alvarez isn’t the only aggressive move being pondered by the Mets, who are also reportedly mulling a promotion for touted pitching prospect Jonah Tong. The 2022 seventh-rounder could feasibly join fellow rookie and top pitching prospect Nolan McLean in the rotation down the stretch. The Mets have sustained multiple rotation injuries to their starting staff (Frankie Montas, Griffin Canning, Tylor Megill) and are scrambling to hold onto a Wild Card spot in the National League. New York is 15-19 since the All-Star break and just 8-14 in August.

The Mets entered the All-Star break in possession of the second Wild Card spot and just a half game behind the Phillies in the NL East. They’re now six games behind Philadelphia in the division and 3.5 games behind San Diego for the second Wild Card spot. The Mets are still 2.5 games up on the Reds for that final spot, but New York has the slightly tougher schedule the rest of the way — including a pivotal three-game set in Cincinnati from Sept. 5-7. The Mets have just a .431 winning percentage on the road, whereas the Reds have won at a .554 clip at home.

Mets Place Reed Garrett On IL Due To Elbow Inflammation

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The Mets announced today that right-hander Reed Garrett has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to right elbow inflammation, retroactive to August 23rd. They have selected left-hander José Castillo to take Garrett’s place on the active roster. Righty Frankie Montas has been transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot.

Garrett, 32, has been a key part of the Mets bullpen for about two years now. He broke out with a strong performance in 2024, tossing 57 1/3 innings with a 3.77 earned run average. His 12.1% walk rate was high but he struck out 33.6% of batters faced and got grounders on 44.3% of balls in play. He moved up the club’s pecking order, earning four saves and 14 holds.

He has largely kept that kind of performance going here in 2025. He has thrown another 52 1/3 innings with a 3.61 ERA, 28.3% strikeout rate, 11% walk rate and 39.1% ground ball rate. He has added another three saves and 20 more holds.

To this point, the Mets haven’t provided any details about his injury or how long they expect him to be out of action, but it’s a concerning development regardless. It’s always somewhat worrisome when a pitcher’s throwing elbow isn’t 100%. For the Mets, they have been hit hard by the injury bug this year, with a number of relievers requiring season-ending surgeries in the first half. The club bolstered the group ahead of the deadline by acquiring Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers and Gregory Soto.

Despite adding those reinforcements, the club has been struggling this summer. They have gone 7-14 in the month of August and are barely clinging to a playoff spot. They are holding the third and final Wild Card slot in the National League but are just 1.5 games ahead of the Reds.

Part of that is due to Garrett himself. He had a 2.87 ERA in the first half but that has been up to 5.52 so far in the second half. A lot of that seems to be luck. He had a 25.5% strikeout rate and 12.4% walk rate in the first half, with those figures improving to 36.2% and 6.9% respectively in the second half. However, his strand rate went from a fairly average 74.2% to 51% while his home run to fly ball rate went from 5.9% to 27.3%. Though his ERA almost doubled in the second half, his FIP had a far more modest jump from 3.22 to 3.73 while his SIERA actually made a significant improvement, going from 3.92 to 2.16.

Even if the recent struggles aren’t entirely due to misfortunate, the Mets surely don’t want to be losing more pitchers to the injured list, especially after the deadline when it’s harder to find external solutions. For Garrett personally, it’s also less than ideal as he’s just about to qualify for arbitration for the first time.

For now, the Mets will add Castillo to the roster. He started the season with the Diamondbacks but was designated for assignment in May. The Mets sent some cash to Arizona to bring him aboard. Since then, he has bounced on and off the roster. They have twice designated him for assignment and sent him through waivers. Each time, he has accepted an assignment to Triple-A Syracuse and later been added back to the roster.

Overall, he has thrown 18 2/3 innings in the big leagues this year with a 5.30 ERA. His 21.5% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate have been close to average. His 53.3% ground ball rate is quite good but perhaps a lot of those grounders have found holes, as his .421 batting average on balls in play is quite high. His 3.76 SIERA suggests he has deserved far better than the ERA would indicate. He has also thrown 16 Triple-A innings this year with a 1.69 ERA, 35.9% strikeout rate, 9.4% walk rate and 50% ground ball rate. He is out of options, which has contributed to his many roster moves this year, so it’s possible his grip on a spot will again be tenuous this time around.

As for Montas, his transfer to the 60-day IL is not a surprise. It was reported a few days ago that he has a “pretty significant” injury to the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. It’s unclear how his 2026 will be impacted but he won’t return in 2025, so this move was inevitable.

Photo courtesy of Brad Penner, Imagn Images

Mets Notes: Tong, Duran, Siri

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There is some feeling within the Mets organization that right-handed pitching prospect Jonah Tong could make his MLB debut before the 2025 season is up, Mike Puma of the New York Post reports.  Tong only just made his debut with Triple-A Syracuse on August 16 and hadn’t been projected as “a consideration for the Major League roster this year,” Puma writes, but “that stance has changed in recent days.”

The shift is due to both the Mets’ rotation needs, and Tong’s continued excellence in his third pro season.  A seventh-round pick for New York in the 2022 draft, Tong has emerged as a top-100 prospect — Baseball America has the right-hander 42nd on their midseason top 100 list, and MLB Pipeline has Tong in their 44nd spot.  It is easy to see why, as Tong has an absurd 1.43 ERA and 40.5% strikeout rate over 113 2/3 combined innings at the Double-A and Triple-A levels in 2025.  That includes 11 2/3 scoreless innings during his brief time in Syracuse.

Naturally there’s some risk in bringing the 22-year-old up to the Show in such relatively rapid fashion, and Tong’s 10.6% walk rate stands out as a potential weakness to be exploited by big league hitters.  That said, Tong’s unusual delivery could also leave some hitters baffled, not to mention his plus fastball that has a ton of break if relatively little velocity (in the 91-94mph range).

Promoting Tong doesn’t necessarily mean he’d be in the majors for the rest of the season, of course, as the Mets could potentially use him for a spot start during a crowded stretch of the schedule.  New York is six games into a stretch of 26 games in 27 days, with September 4 as the only off-day during that stretch.  This puts even more pressure on a rotation that hasn’t provided much in the way of length or results lately, and the Mets already turned to another rookie in Nolan McLean to take Frankie Montas’ rotation spot earlier this month.

At this point it wouldn’t be a shock to see McLean, Tong, and another top prospect in Brandon Sproat all get onto the mound before the Mets’ season is over.  This need for help from the farm (in addition to any club’s natural reticence about moving top prospects) may have been a reason why the Amazins didn’t make much progress in trade talks with the Twins about Jhoan Duran.

The Mets were loosely linked to Duran’s market just prior to the trade deadline, and the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported that the Mets weren’t willing to move any of McLean, Tong, Sproat, Jett Williams, or Carson Benge.  This quintet are the consensus top prospects within New York’s farm system, and Baseball America has all five players within their league-wide top-100 prospects list.  Minnesota was known to be seeking at least one top-100 type for Duran’s services, and found such an offer from another NL East club in the Phillies, who landed Duran for Eduardo Tait and Mick Abel.

Duran has looked excellent in Philadelphia, while the Mets have gotten mixed result from their deadline bullpen acquisitions.  Tyler Rogers and Gregory Soto have both pitched well since coming to Queens, but Ryan Helsley has struggled badly.  Shaky pitching on both the bullpen and rotation has contributed to the Mets’ 7-13 record in August, and the Phillies have pulled out to a six-game lead over New York in the NL East.

In other Mets news, manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters (including MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo) on Wednesday that Jose Siri is expected to start a minor league rehab assignment this week.  Siri fractured his left tibia after fouling a ball off his leg back in April, and what was expected to be an absence of 8-10 weeks has now lasted well over four months.  Since he played in only 10 games with the Mets before the injury, Siri figures to need at least a week of minor league action to get fully ramped up for a return to the active roster.

This makes him a candidate for an IL activation once rosters expand on September 1, though Siri will be returning to a more crowded outfield picture.  New York went into the season planning to use Siri and Tyrone Taylor in a center field timeshare, but the deadline acquisition of Cedric Mullins has now created a more traditional lefty-righty platoon up the middle with Taylor.  A player with Siri’s elite glove always has value on a roster, of course, so the Mets could use him as something of a defensive specialist if nothing else.

Frankie Montas Done For 2025 Due To “Pretty Significant” UCL Injury

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4:13pm: Manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters (including Mike Puma of the New York Post) that Montas’s UCL injury is “pretty significant.” Mendoza went on to confirm that Montas will not pitch again in 2025.

2:21pm: The Mets announced that Frankie Montas has been placed on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to August 22) due to a UCL-related injury in his right elbow.  Right-hander Huascar Brazoban has been called up from Triple-A to take Montas’ spot on the active roster.

It’s the latest setback in what was been a brutal inaugural season for Montas in Queens. The right-hander signed a $34MM guarantee with the Mets during the winter but has produced just 38 2/3 innings of work for the team so far. A lat strain suffered at the outset of Spring Training left Montas to open the season on the injured list and he did not make his season debut until June 24. After throwing five scoreless innings in his first start of the year, Montas pitched to a ghastly 7.85 ERA over his next six starts with an 18.2% strikeout rate and a whopping seven home runs allowed. Those brutal results led the Mets to move Montas to the bullpen earlier this month, where he’s surrendered four runs (two earned) on four walks and six hits (including a home run) while striking out just three.

Altogether, Montas has posted a 6.28 ERA and a 5.31 FIP during his time with the Mets with an 18.0% strikeout rate and a 7.9% walk rate. It’s a deeply disappointing outcome, and now it’s an open question when Montas will next be available to pitch. The Mets have made no announcements about the right-hander’s timeline for return, nor offered any indications about the severity of the injury. Of course, many fans will wonder about the possibility of Tommy John surgery, which is often required to repair a pitcher’s UCL once damaged. Such a procedure (or even a less-invasive internal brace procedure) would likely cost Montas not only the remainder of this year but also the entire 2026 season. With that being said, some UCL injuries are possible to address via rehab. That’s a path that Braves hurler Grant Holmes opted to take earlier this month as he deals with a partial UCL tear, though even Holmes’s rehab process has brought his 2025 campaign to an abrupt end.

While the details of Montas’s prognosis and timeline for return won’t be clear until the Mets make an announcement offering more information, the club will be without the right-hander for at least the immediate future. Given the fact that Montas’s performance was poor enough that he was bumped from the rotation earlier this month, perhaps that’s not too massive of a blow. Sean Manaea, Kodai Senga, David Peterson, and Clay Holmes remain in the club’s rotation and have recently been joined by top prospect Nolan McLean. Brandon Waddell and Justin Hagenman remain in the minors already on the 40-man roster as potential depth options behind that group, and well-regarded prospect Brandon Sproat has a 4.24 ERA in 24 starts at Triple-A this year.

Replacing Montas on the roster is Brazoban, who began his career in the majors with Miami back in 2022 but has served as an up-and-down relief arm for the Mets this year. It’s a role he’s performed quite well in, with a 3.83 ERA and 4.14 FIP across 51 2/3 innings of work spread between 3 starts and 41 relief outings. Brazoban figures to take up Montas’s mantle as the club’s long reliever going forward.

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