I Want a Diamondback, Diamondback, Diiiamoondback Starting Pitcher (Just One of Theeeem)
As you might’ve figured out by now, I have a toddler. He’s wonderful. But he’s also busy. And he’s not sleeping at the moment, and he’s never been a great sleeper. It can be a nasty combo sometimes.
As many other parents have probably experienced, this means you don’t get around to a ton of the things that you’d like to do around the house, the car, or your life. The energy that you’d like to apply to that is just something you don’t have a lot of, which means you spend more time scrolling and binging streaming services than home/self-improvement.
When we do have energy, we’ve been trying to reorganize the house. Having a child means filling your house with all sorts of stuff that you use for 4-6 months, and because of the lack of sleep, you don’t have the energy to do anything but toss it in a closet or the darkest corner of the basement to act as a home for the alarmingly significant number of spider species that live down there.
We have made progress, though. All of the closets have been cleaned, and it’s really just the darkest corner of the basement that is left at this point. The alarming number of spider species is likely a contributing factor for my wife to not be as especially worried about it, but we do need to get to it.
For everything else, we’ve tossed it out or put it at the end of the driveway. And it just never ceases to amaze me at what people will pass by and pick up. We’ve had some broken chairs, beat up small tables, and even a TV that doesn’t work anymore picked up by someone before the garbage truck gets there. Godspeed to those people. If you can make something out of those things, you are an excellent person.
It’s also time for the Atlanta Braves to rescue an Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher.
The Situation
The Diamondbacks have a mildly embarrassing set of riches in their rotation. Zac Gallen and Corbin Burnes give them one of the better 1-2 combos in the league, and Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez give them a very solid 3-4 to fall back on.
Following the top 4, they have 5 interesting options that we should investigate – Jordan Montgomery, Brandon Pfaadt, Ryne Nelson, Yilber Diaz, and Cristian Mena.
Remember, Atlanta has Chris Sale, Reynaldo Lopez, and Spencer Schwellenbach locked into 1-3 in the rotation, and if Atlanta wants to add to the rotation, that person needs to be better than Grant Holmes and Ian Anderson.
Yes, Spencer Strider should be back soon, but there is likely to be another injury by then. So let’s take a look.
Jordan Montgomery
Just stop waiting until deep into Spring Training to sign. Just stop. It never works.
Montgomery had been a solidly above-average pitcher for about 4 years prior to 2024, enough that a 2-year and not quite $50 million contract wasn’t the expectation heading into the offseason. It took a while, but he finally signed a surprise contract with the Diamondbacks and then promptly had by far the worst season of his career.
The first issue was his fastball velocity dropping a whole mph or so from 93-93.5 to 92. Was that because he didn’t really get a full Spring Training, even if Scott Boras had him throwing the whole time?
The next issue is that Arizona made him throw that weakened fastball more. After throwing it 10% of the time in 2023, he went back toward his career norm of around 16-17% of the time. I get the general idea, but when it was clearly not the same quality fastball, I probably would have stuck more with the sinker.
The next issue was that basically everything abandoned him. He struck out a whole batter less per nine. He walked an extra person per nine. His Stuff+ continued his descent toward 90 (not good), and his Location+ did the same. That’s a really bad combo.
The final issue here is the contract. Montgomery is owed $22.5 million for 2025, which is a ton of money for all of these warning signs. Depending on how he looks this Spring, it might help answer the question of whether or not the issues were because of the late signing or just the decline of a 32-year old.
Brandon Pfaadt
We’ve reached the young and interesting portion of the options here.
Pfaadt rose quickly as a top prospect, and his stuff (overall Stuff+ of 102 with a 121 slider, hoo boy) has always been extremely intriguing. His peripherals have also been pretty good, but the ERA has about a run higher than his advanced metrics over his two seasons. It’s only 270ish innings, so there’s still some vArIaNcE here that could be causing some of it as he’s been fairly homer-prone.
The Statcast measurables are pretty good as well.
And his Location+ has been around 106-107.
The main question is this. Is he the 4.15 FIP pitcher? Is he the 3.88 xFIP pitcher? Is he the 5.06 ERA pitcher? I tend to bet on the peripherals, and the peripherals have been improving. If Arizona isn’t going to use him, Atlanta should be asking.
Ryne Nelson
You might have heard of Pfaadt, but Nelson has been of less note in his career so far.
Drafted in the middle of the second round in 2019, Nelson was a notable prospect in the minors, but he was never exactly pushing Top Prospect © territory. His 2023 debut didn’t exactly inspire confidence as he struck out 6 per 9, walked per 9, and all of the metrics were north of 5. His first half of 2024 was almost as bad, though he got those walks down to 2ish per 9.
But then came the second half of 2024. He struck out over 9 per 9 … He walked less than 2 per 9 … And he was suddenly one of the best pitchers in the game. What happened? The Deathball. Nelson seemed to get more comfortable with a more vertical slider, and it paid off.
Given his age and general pedigree, he’s probably cheaper than Pfaadt. His Statcast, for reference.
Yilber Diaz
Speaking of the Deathball, Diaz is an up arrow kind of name.
The 24-year old cut down on his walks and moved from AA to AAA to a brief callup in the majors. He throws hard (averaging a higher velo than either Nelson or Pfaadt), and he also has an excellent slider. But the fastball doesn’t have great characteristics, and the location of his stuff in general leaves a lot to be desired.
I could argue that he’s an improvement on Ian Anderson because I just don’t trust Anderson at this point. But I also couldn’t argue that it would be a substantial improvement, enough to pay likely what the Diamondbacks would want for someone this young and with options remaining.
Cristian Mena
You can basically copy and paste a lot from the above section on Diaz.
Mena throws hard, doesn’t always know where it’s going, and has done it at a couple years younger than even Diaz, as he sits at 22 years old today. In comparison to Diaz, he strikes out fewer people and walks more, but the pitch arsenal and characteristics look a lot better.
His Statcast pops a little more than Yilber’s …
But there’s still a lot of blue there. While he’s a lot of fun, he’s likely not ready to step into a major-league rotation.
That leaves effectively 3 guys for the Diamondbacks rotation, heading into 2025. Diaz and Mena are likely to head up the rotation for the AAA team, which leaves Montgomery, Pfaadt, and Nelson.
Montgomery remains the most likely option. I would imagine, especially after signing Burnes, that the Diamondbacks would like to trim any payroll they can, but a deal isn’t likely to materialize closer to Opening Day. I don’t think Atlanta wants to make a move until they see if the stuff comes back a bit more, and Arizona likely wants to see what their situation actually looks like at that point along with the situation around the rest of the league. I would be very surprised if Montgomery was a Diamondback by Opening Day, but I can understand why they’re waiting.
Nelson and Pfaadt likely aren’t moved before then, either. Montgomery won’t cost a lot. The question is more how much Arizona is going to pay to make him go away. Nelson or Pfaadt are going to cost actual stuff to acquire, and they both have options left in order to stick them back in AAA, which wouldn’t be optimal (I imagine both pitchers would be pretty mad, given their success recently). There’s also room enough in the Diamondbacks pen. There’s a really strong front 6, and that leaves enough room for a couple long relievers.
But throwing any of these pitchers in the bullpen isn’t really an effective use of resources, either. Montgomery isn’t going to recover any trade value there. Nelson and Pfaadt wouldn’t get the reps to prove their future value to the organization.
So we’ll see how Spring shakes out (get it), but as we get closer to Opening Day, I expect at least one of these guys to shake loose in the trade market.