January 10, 2024
Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK
As pitching options narrow down this offseason, could the Phillies make a push for free-agent lefty Jordan Montgomery?
Japanese lefty Shōta Imanaga appears to be coming off the board as reports began filing in Tuesday that the 30-year old is nearing a deal with the Chicago Cubs.
And so there goes another starting pitcher that the Phillies have been rumored to have at least some interest in, further dwindling down the options in what's been a relatively quiet winter – both for the Phils and mostly all of baseball save for the Dodgers – ever since the club re-upped Aaron Nola long-term.
Who's left?
Here's a quick check in on the starting arms still available...
The NL Cy Young winner is still out there, and per MassLive Red Sox writer Chris Cotillo a couple of weeks ago, there is a belief going around that the 31-year old lefty could end up with "a shorter, more creative deal for a team in win-now mode."
The Phillies fit that ball, and that idea could be beneficial given that they also have Zack Wheeler's extension to keep in mind.
The knocks against Snell remain. He doesn't exactly give you too much length and he's inconsistent from year-to-year. But it does stands to reason that having Wheeler and Nola in front of him would protect him a bit, and free him up to just rack up strikeouts for 5-6 innings before reaching into the bullpen.
That would be the ideal scenario, and at last check, the Phillies do still seem to be lingering out there as a possible suitor – though, again, it's been very quiet of late.
The same goes for the 31-year old Montgomery, who also comes with the benefit of his recent World Series run with Texas.
However, per the New York Post's Joel Sherman, Montgomery's asking price seems to have snuck up to the Nola range in terms of years and salary after the winter started with him originally being thought of as one of the cheaper options comparatively.
But now that some major key arms are off the board, perhaps his camp sees the lefty as that much more valuable.
Neither right-hander is a free agent yet – Burnes has one more year of team control with Milwaukee and Cease has two more with the White Sox – but they've sorta, maybe, kinda been put out there on the trade market by their respective clubs, so we'll loop them both in here for now.
Burnes, 29, is a former Cy Young winner and All-Star of the past three seasons. In 2023, he posted a 3.39 ERA, a 1.069 WHIP, and 200 strikeouts in 193.2 innings across 32 starts.
Cease, 28, meanwhile, had an uneven year on a bad White Sox team (7-9, 4.58 ERA, 1.418 WHIP in 33 starts), but isn't all that far removed from a dominant 2022 in which he went 14-8 with a 2.20 ERA and 227 strikeouts.
Possible trades for either could happen this winter, into the spring, or at the trade deadline later in the summer.
The trick with Burnes and the thought of the Brewers moving him right now, however, is that Milwaukee seems to be waffling over how competitive they intend to be in 2024 along with reservations over the true value they would get for their starter in a deal now given that his free agency looms on the horizon – this per The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal.
With Chicago, per ESPN's Jesse Rogers, new GM Chris Getz seems fully aware of and confident in what he has with Cease and is simply waiting for the pitcher's value to max out before making a move, which, again, could be tomorrow, in the spring, or at the deadline.
The difference from Burnes and Brewers, however, is that Cease and the White Sox' case appears far more of a matter of "when" rather than "if."
Circling it back to the Phillies, should club president Dave Dombrowski end up turning his sights to the trade market for a pitching upgrade, though with opting to wait it out until this coming season's trade deadline, the current projected rotation 1-5 of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suárez, Taijuan Walker, and Cristopher Sánchez should be more than enough to have the team back on track to October in the meantime.
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