What Happened to Frankie Montas?

I remember sitting in my car on lunch one day. I don’t recall the month but it was one of those in 2020 where there had been baseball played in the United States every year prior for a very long time. I came across a video of one Jose Ramirez facing off against one Frankie Montas in an indoor batting cage. Both were in basketball shorts, so it didn’t feel too real but what did was my thought that these were two of the bests in the game at their respective crafts. Jo-Ram an elite hitter and Montas his counterpart on the mound. Sitting here in the post mortem of the A’s season (and my fantasy season, I lost all leagues) I don’t know what to think of the pitcher moving forward. I did my best to shed some light.

Beginning with the obvious, the numbers in 2019 were better than they were in 2020. To summarize, Montas threw 96 innings in 2019 in which batters hit .229. This was accompanied by a 2.63 ERA, a 3.00 FIP, a 1.11 WHIP, a 9.6k/9, a 2.16BB/9, and a HR/9 of 0.75- you have to squint to see that last one. Yea, pretty good. Pretty, pretty good at that. 2020, a year in which Oakland was counting on him to lead a staff with the wind of Puk and Luzardo at his sails, he was not as good. 53 innings yielded a 5.60 ERA, a 4.74 FIP, a 1.51 WHIP, a 10.19k/9 (actually better) and a 3.91 BB/9 (worse). This was all with the opposition hitting .268 against the big righty, again, not as good.

By no means was this tale of two seasons the type of clean break you get when you snap a frozen candy bar(one without carmel though). Montas came into 2020 on a mission… almost like he was looking to prove himself after something…. As it was on August 8th after a sterling performance in Houston, Frankie had a 1.57 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP through 32 innings. Further, in his last two outings the right hander had turned in duplicate 7 inning lights out performances in which he allowed 1 ER and 6 hits, combined. After this run is when it fell apart.

Montas had a back ailment which caused him to miss a start. 10 days later he returned to the mound and was shelled like a peanut. 1.2 IP in Arizona where he yielded 9 runs on 6 hits across 56 pitches. The hook couldn’t come soon enough. His next start was better, but by no means good. Over 4.2 innings he coughed up 4 runs and 7 hits against the Angels. Was there an injury? Yes, but what were the tangible effects of it?

Montas actually threw harder in his return on 8/18, topping out at 98.5mph with his 4 seamer. He hadn’t cracked 97mph in the two starts prior in which he was excellent. His pitch distribution was different in the shelling, he threw his sinker 46% of the time, an abnormality in his season average of 38% usage. He only threw 56 pitches though so that could disrupt the sample. Why was he suddenly so bad?

In 2020, batters were swinging less at the righties offerings and hit the ball hard more often when they did connect. Comparing 2019 to 2020, the chase rate he induced fell 4.2%, and the swing % fell by 4.5%. It is no surprise with these decreasing rates that his walk rate increased. Equally concerning, potentially even more so, was the barrel% jump: 3.8% in 2019 to 7.8% in 2020. Don’t swing at balls and barrel up the strikes- that’s pretty much how you draw it up.

Looking at the movement on his pitches may lend some clarity into the murky water of his struggles. The slider may have been not only less enticing, but more hittable across the two seasons. The horizontal movement gained almost an entire inch of movement (from 5” in 19 to 5.9” in 20); for context that was a jump from 37% better than league average to 47%. It gained more vertical movement as well, increasing from -4% from league average to 2% above. Furthermore, he threw the pitch an average of 2.3mph slower in 2020. So, the pitch moved more and it was slower; that could have something to do with batters holding off more in general.

The one-two punch here though is that batters were not only offering less, they were missing less. The WHIF rate dropped by 10%. Increasingly indicting of the slider was that batters hit .167 in 2019 against the pitch and .208 against it in 2020. So the pitch moved more, was thrown slower, induced less swing and miss, and was hit safely more often.

Could the increasingly bendy path of this pitch be behind Montas’ sudden struggles with the all-mighty left handed batter? Could the decreased attraction of the sometimes freezing, sometimes alluring, backdoor explain these splits which are really nothing short of gnarly.

2020 vs LHP 22IP/ 9.13 ERA/ 2.21 WHIP/ 25K

2020 vs RHP 30.1 IP/2.97 ERA/0.99 WHIP/ 35K

Yea, this was not a problem in 2019.

2019 vs LHP 50.2IP/2.66 ERA/ 1.14 WHIP/ 62k

2019 vs RHP 45.1 IP 2.58 ERA/ 1.08 WHIP/ 41K

He even struck out more lefties than righties in 2019!

Speaking of dramatic splits, the home vs road in 2020 certainly fits the bill. We’re talking a 2.56 ERA at home vs a 10.13 in the grey pants. The foul ground in Oakland no doubt played a role in this but his most terrible starts also occurred on the road. Montas went 4 innings or fewer and allowed 5 runs or more three times, all away from the beautiful Coli.

Should he only pitch at home (as a streaming option?) in 2021? Will he be relegated to the bullpen, only to be deployed when 3 right handed batters are due up to the plate!?

I don’t know what Montas will be like in 2021. He will be 28 on opening day and has yet to eclipse more than 100 innings in a season in his career. The slider is clearly a question mark but two things are for certain, the A’s will be counting him and so will I across my fantasy rosters.