On the day pitchers and catchers report to spring training, the Yankees are already down a starter. Frankie Montas will undergo surgery on his right shoulder and could miss the entire 2023 season, manager Aaron Boone revealed.
The 29-year-old was acquired in a trade deadline deal from the Oakland A’s last season. Montas experienced shoulder issues while with the A’s and those continued as he made the move to the Bronx. The right-hander’s surgery is scheduled for Feb. 21.
“It’s been a couple of different shutdowns where he was getting built up,” Boone told reporters Wednesday at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla. “He got cleared to go again, he was building back up and he just still wasn’t quite right and now we’ve gotten to the point where they’ll go in and scope it and then they’ll have a better idea of the time frame.”
Best-case scenario for Montas is that he can return at some point during the second half of the season, Boone said, however, the trade to bring him to the Bronx looks worse by the day. Outside of the injury issues, the Dominican native’s performance on the mound was far from the ace-like talent he displayed with the A’s.
Montas posted a 6.35 ERA in eight starts for the Yankees last season before being shut down due to that shoulder issue that has remained unresolved throughout the offseason. Prior to the trade that sent Ken Waldichuck, J.P. Sears and Luis Medina to the A’s, Montas was in the midst of a career season, registering a 3.18 ERA and striking out 9.4 batters per nine innings in 19 starts.
The Bombers’ staff, which was being heralded as arguably the best in baseball, has already taken a hit before official spring work begins, but Boone said Wednesday in his first press conference of the spring that he is not overly concerned with his starting rotation that features Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Luis Severino and Nestor Cortes.
“Anytime you have some attrition, especially this time of the year, you start to have pitcher injuries and things like that, that always scares you,” Boone said. “But it’s also a part of the team that I have a ton of confidence in. I feel like our rotation on paper — and I caution we’re in the middle of February right now and it’s still only that — but I’m excited about their potential about their impact and what they can be.”
The Yankees’ top four is as strong of a rotation as the club has had in recent memory, however, the fifth spot in the rotation can now be added to the list of position battles to watch this spring along with shortstop and left field.
Clarke Schmidt and Domingo German figure to be the frontrunners as both right-handers have experience making starts for the Yankees in years past. Schmidt, a former first-round pick, made 29 appearances with the Bombers last season with three of those being starts in his first extended run with the club. German meanwhile has made 70 starts for Boone since 2018.
Despite Boone’s professed confidence on Day 1, a key piece of the team is likely to miss significant time which is a troubling start for a team with World Series aspirations.
