The New York Mets have lost one of their starting pitchers to a long-term injury. Righty Frankie Montas will be shut down for 6-8 weeks with a high-grade lat strain, the team announced Monday. He is leaving the team’s spring training complex in Florida to receive treatment in New York, including a platelet rich-plasma injection.
“He’s going 6-8 (weeks) with no throwing,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Ramp up, he’s pretty much gotta go through a whole spring training program.”
The typical spring training ramp up is 6-8 weeks, so Montas is looking at potentially 3-4 months on the shelf. That would put him on track to join the Mets sometime in May or June, assuming no setbacks. Montas, 31, threw 150 2/3 innings with the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers last year. He missed almost the entire 2023 season with shoulder surgery.
With Montas sidelined, New York’s rotation depth chart looks something like this:
- LHP Sean Manaea
- RHP Kodai Senga (limited to 10 1/3 innings by injuries in 2024)
RHP Frankie Montas(out 3-4 months with lat strain)- LHP David Peterson
- RHP Clay Holmes (hasn’t started since 2018)
- RHP Paul Blackburn (coming off spine surgery)
- RHP Tylor Megill
- RHP Griffin Canning
Top pitching prospect Brandon Sproat is in big-league camp as a non-40-man roster player, though it seems unlikely he would break camp with the MLB team barring a barrage of injuries. Sproat, 24, is more likely to be a midseason call up, and he could potentially provide real impact during New York’s second-half postseason push.
The Mets signed Montas to a two-year, $34 million contract with an opt out in December. The injury makes it less likely he’ll opt out, though with a healthy return and a strong finish to the season, free agency could be tempting. Montas had a 4.84 ERA with 148 strikeouts in those 150 ⅔ innings with the Reds and Brewers last year.
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New York went 89-73 and reached the NLCS last season. They landed star free agent Juan Soto on a record 15-year, $765 million contract this offseason, and also re-signed Manaea. The rest of their offseason was a bit more low-key.
