Jordan Montgomery

Montgomery’s changeup like his other pitches does not move. The pitch hasn’t gotten crushed but if he leaves it anywhere in the zone it’s easy to imagine it going a long way.

One of his more effective pitches despite it’s lack of movement, hitters have had trouble making contact on his curve and when they have there has been little success on turning them into hits.

His fastball has good movement, but generally gets crushed when contact is made.

He keeps his slider low and away from lefties, but it is a below average slider in terms of movement.

The curve was extremely effective in limited work last season, limiting hitters to a .147 average. He was able to get a ton of swings and misses outside of the zone, and the majority of contact was grounders or weak pop-ups. This is a great pitch for Montgomery.

Montgomery threw the changeup later in counts, evidenced by his increased zone rate and increased walk rates. It was otherwise a similar pitch in 2017, other than a huge spike in BABIP from .208 to .364. It’s fair to expect some positive regression in 2019.

The four-seamer was not good for Montgomery last season, as his only negative pVal pitch. Opposing bats hit. 350, and despite allowing fewer fly balls from the year before he allowed home runs at a higher frequency. His two-seamer was the more effective of his fastballs.

Montgomery’s two-seamer made huge strides, going from a -8.5 to 1.6 pVal. Hitters hit .200 points less from 2017 to 2018, with the biggest difference being him stretching the zone more with his pitch instead of tunneling down and in to lefties.

Hitters did not chase Montgomery’s slider out of the zone last season, leading to a big drop in strikeout rate. He did get the pitch in the zone more often and it did a good job of limiting home runs, but the curve commanded more of the punchouts.