The Mets have identified their next starting pitching project.
Frankie Montas will be looking to revive his career at Queen's after a year in which Sean Manaea and Luis Severino arrived at relatively low prices and he enjoyed a recovery season.
The Mets and the 31-year-old have agreed to a two-year contract worth $17 million per season, with the player opting out after the first year, the Post's Jon Heyman reported Sunday. The contract is pending physical inspection.
Montas, a top strikeout artist who finished sixth in AL Cy Young voting in 2021, had a combined 4.84 ERA in 30 starts with the Reds and Brewers last season.
This season marks a step forward for the right-hander, who appeared in one game in 2023 after his season with the Yankees was nearly wiped out due to right shoulder surgery. However, Montas' performance did not improve due to his health, and he pitched to a WHIP of 1.367 per nine innings, walking 3.9 batters. He showed good signs at the end of the season, striking out 70 batters in 57¹/₃ innings after his deadline trade to the Brewers.
Montas will be part of a not-yet-complete Mets rotation currently led by Kouhiro Chiga, with options in David Peterson, Tyler Megill, Jose Butt and Paul Blackburn. Manaea and Severino are free agents after similarly disappointing 2023 seasons before joining the Mets last winter and helping lead the club to the NLCS.
Last month, manager David Stearns acknowledged that the Mets may try a similar effort to find rehab candidate pitchers this offseason.
“I think the way we built our rotation last offseason was successful,” Stearns said during the GM meeting. “I think we're trying to build another successful rotation in some way or another, and we can do that in a lot of different ways. We don't feel obligated to do it in a particular way. I don’t feel it.”
Montas is known as a particularly destructive splitter, hitting .218 last season while opponents whiffed on 42.6 percent of his swings.
He rode that pitch to much success over five and a half seasons with the Athletics, posting a combined ERA of 3.70. He was then traded to the Bronx before the 2022 trade deadline, but he was never healthy with the Yankees, pitching 41 innings in a season and a half.
