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Tuesday, December 15, 2020
MLB Trade Rumors: Rafael Montero is going to the Seattle Mariners from the Texas Rangers, per Jeff Passan on Twitter.
Montero, 30, took over the closer role early in 2020, and ended the year with a 4.08 ERA in 17.2 IP over 17 games with 8 saves, and with a 3.70 FIP. Montero, who was signed as a minor league free agent after the 2018 season by Texas, put up a 2.48 ERA in 22 games and 29 innings in 2019 for Texas.
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1. JRVJ Posted: December 15, 2020 at 05:23 PM (#5994362)We could go by year. In 2012, deGrom had a 2.43 ERA across A/A+; Montero had a 2.36 ERA across A/A+ in a few more innings. In 2013, deGrom had a 4.51 ERA across A+/AA/AAA -- half those innings were at AAA Las Vegas but he also had a 4.80 at AA Birmingham. His K-rate was just 7.3/9. Montero 2013 had a 2.78 ERA across AA/AAA with more AAA innings and a 8.7 K/9. Who's the better prospect, the 22-yo with the better ERA and K/9 or the 25-yo?
In 2014, Montero got off to an OK start in Vegas with a 3.67 ERA and 41 K in 41 IP. He got called up for 4 bad but not atrocious by rookie standards starts and bounced back and forth for the rest of the year which seems to have included a couple weeks on the minors IL. deGrom got off a better start with a 2.58 ERA but just 29 K in 38 innings at Vegas. His debut came the day after Montero's and in his first 4 starts, he put up a 2.42 ERA and K'd 25 in 26 innings and the rest is history. Montero gets hurt and throws just 28 innings in 2015 and misses all of 2018 too.
Prospecting is hard, doubly so when one of the guys gets hurt at 24 and 27. (I assume it was injuries.) But right up until mid-May 2014, Montero performed as well or better than deGrom and was 3 years younger. Baseball is a funny game.
I wonder what scouts thought though. Montero had a low 90s fastball and was one of these guys who got accolades because "deception" made it look faster--despite how many of those guys crater when they reach AAA or the majors.
I think deGrom's prospect status was relatively scout driven. He was originally a position player and only began pitching as a junior in college. Very soon after arriving in the minors he needed Tommy John, which probably scrambled what anyone had thought of him. Came back and succeeded as relatively old for the low minors, and then didn't get great results at AAA. And besides Montero, he was behind Harvey, Wheeler and Syndergaard in terms of prospect status. So he was touted for his "stuff" rather than dominance in the minors. Then he arrived in MLB somehow more or less a fully formed ace.
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