Why the Mariners should hold on to Rafael Montero

On December 15, 2020, Jerry Dipoto pulled the trigger on his first offseason move, trading for Rafael Montero of the Texas Rangers. To get him, Dipoto shipped off recently signed pitcher Jose Corniel, a 17-year-old with a live arm and a bright future. It seemed surprising at the time that Dipoto would sell Corniel after signing him and praising him heavily to the media.

To this point irrespective of how Corniel turns out, Montero has been a disaster. His ERA sits at 6.75, and with every bad outing seems to continue to teeter on the edge of being DFA’d. His inconsistency with a live fastball and sharp moving offspeed has been alarming. However, there is a strong case for Montero to stay in the Mariners bullpen for 2021 and beyond.

Montero is a contender to greatly improve his performance for the Mariners in 2021 and beyond.

Montero came up as a highly touted Mets farmhand and began his career as a starter. As his time in the rotation seemed bleak, he was dealt to the Texas Rangers where he delivered two great seasons.

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His two seasons with the Rangers produced a 3.09 ERA, a 0.99 WHIP, and 53 strikeouts in 46 ⅔ innings out of the bullpen. This signaled a shift in Montero’s career arc and led to him being a potential building block for Jerry Dipoto and the Mariner’s bullpen.

While most of 2021 has been a disaster for Montero, there are several reasons to not give up on the flamethrower just yet. His performance with the Rangers in 2019 and 2020 shows us that there is a successful pitcher in there somewhere.

The advanced stats are actually very surprising for Montero in 2021. According to Fangraphs his FIP is 4.11 compared to his 6.75 ERA, which is encouraging to say the least. FIP measures a pitcher’s effectiveness, solely taking into account the plays a pitcher can control (walks, strikeouts, home runs, hit by pitches). We can see from this data that Montero has actually been extremely unlucky, and his ERA should gravitate down towards the 4.11 mark.

His unluckiness on balls in play is noticeable as well, with a BABIP of .346 against him. Montero should begin to see his numbers improve as his current numbers are not sustainable.

His physical stuff has also diminished this season, as horizontal movement and spin on all of his pitches is down considerably from 2019/2020. If Montero can regain the movement on his pitches with help from the Mariners player development (see Paul Sewald), we could easily begin to see him revert back to the pitcher he was with the Rangers.

The bullpen has been so dominant this season it has been easy to pick Montero out of the crowd. His numbers stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the bullpen and have had fans clamoring for his release from the team.

I am here to tell you that you should never give up on a player when he is at his lowest value, especially a player you traded real future talent for. Tuesday’s All-Star game drives this point home even deeper, as the field was littered with ex-Mariners given up on too early.

Upside in his numbers, good track record, and the fickleness of relievers all point towards Montero regaining his value. Whether you like it or not he needs to be a part of the Mariners bullpen until further notice.