Ivy League Cubs

By: Jacob Zanolla

The final Scott Boras has signed, with less than two days until Opening Day. What a mess. Montgomery clearly won’t be ready right away, but it’s nice to know where he will be once he is able to pitch in real games.

Montgomery is one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball. While he may not be an ace, you can trust he will almost always give you a good outing. The vesting option is worth $25M as well, and requires him to pitch in 10 games. In other words, this is a cushion to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.

Contract:

Year one: $25M

Year Two: Vesting Option. 10 starts- $20M; 18 starts- $22.5M; 23 starts- $25M.

The Diamondbacks seemed like a possible option once Eduardo Rodriguez, who they signed earlier this offseason, got hurt. With his health in question, Mike Hazen decided to be aggressive and sign Montgomery to a very short team deal. I love this move for Arizona, as it gives them someone who I would trust any day of the week to pitch in the postseason for my team.

The question that needs to be asked if why the Cubs didn’t do this. To be honest, I have no idea. This seems like something that is right up Jed’s alley. We know that Jed Hoyer loves short term deals, as they don’t keep him locked up too far into the future. In return, he would prefer to pay a high average annual value (AAV) to compensate for the lack of length. This was one of the reasons I thought Montgomery to the Cubs made sense, being that he was most likely going to get a short term deal. My guess is that the luxury tax played a massive part in this, with Tom Ricketts wanting to stay below the first threshold (although different places have different total salary numbers regarding this tax).

This is WAY less than Montgomery had wanted. Dare I say Boras is washed?