The Oakland Athletics announced that they traded right-handed starter Frankie Montas and reliever Lou Trivino to the Yankees on Monday for four prospects.
Montas, 29, is the latest impact player to leave the A’s, who made a flurry of moves ahead of the 2022 season. He became one of the American League’s most dominant pitchers in the latter half of 2021, with a 2.17 ERA and 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings after the All-Star break.
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His pitching arsenal mostly consists of an upper-90s fastball and a devastating splitter, which he used with great success as the 2021 season progressed. Oakland and Montas agreed to a one-year deal at just over $5 million to avoid arbitration this year. He’ll become eligible for free agency after the 2023 season.
The headliner among the players going to Oakland is Ken Waldichuk, a 24-year-old lefty starter with 116 strikeouts and a 2.71 ERA over 76 1/3 innings this year in Double A and Triple A. The Yankees drafted Waldichuk in the fifth round out of St. Mary’s in 2019.
Ken Waldichuk made his Triple-A debut for @swbrailriders this afternoon. He went 5.1 IP, 3 H, ER, 2 BB, 9 K. Sat 94-96 mph on his FB, mixed a slider at 80-82 mph w/ a ton of sweep, CB at 77-79 w/ 2-plane break, & a CHG 80-84 mph. Generated 8 whiffs versus slider today. #RepBX pic.twitter.com/vNYDnvCmxa
— Geoff Pontes (@GeoffPontesBA) May 22, 2022
The A’s got another lefty in 26-year-old JP Sears, who went 3-0 with a 2.05 ERA in seven appearances (including two starts) for the Yankees this season, along with 23-year-old right-hander Luis Medina and second baseman Cooper Bowman. Sears and Medina were on the Yankees’ 40-man roster and New York took Bowman, 22, in the fourth round in 2021 out of Louisville.
Oakland will send Sears and Waldichuk to Triple-A Las Vegas, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see both get called up to the majors in the near future.
Montas has a 3.18 ERA in 19 starts (104 2/3 innings) this season. In his two starts since missing time because of right shoulder inflammation in early July, he has allowed two earned runs in eight innings with nine strikeouts. He threw three scoreless innings in a start against the Tigers, with normal velocity over his first two innings before a dip in velocity in the third inning. His velocity was more consistent when he went five innings against the Astros in his final start for the A’s, but it was still a touch below the level he was before experiencing shoulder pain.
Frankie Montas, Wicked Splitters. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/LypTqUkK3V
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 22, 2022
He became the best starting pitcher known to be available on the trade market after the Seattle Mariners acquired Luis Castillo over the weekend. Perhaps the only concern with Montas joining a contender — other than having to get a cortisone shot a few weeks ago for his shoulder — is his lack of big-game success stories.
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He didn’t pitch after mid-September in 2018 – the first of three consecutive postseason runs for the A’s. He was enjoying a breakout first half in 2019, with a 9-2 record and 2.70 ERA, but an 80-game suspension for a positive Ostarine test took him out of the picture in October of that season. He didn’t pitch well over the last couple of months in 2020, so all he got was one semi-promising two-inning appearance in the wild-card series against the White Sox and an ALDS start against the Astros that went poorly.
He has generally been durable, though. Until his shoulder ailment in July, Montas hadn’t missed a start over the past two seasons. His stuff is well above-average. He’ll give a team innings and might be at a point in his career when he’s ready to excel in a situation with more pressure than he faced in Oakland this season. If his recent shoulder issue gave teams any pause, it clearly wasn’t enough to prevent a trade.
Trivino, 30, has a 6.47 ERA over 32 innings this season, but has eight saves since June 25 and saved 22 games with a 3.18 ERA in 2021. He’s making $3 million this season and has two more years of team control remaining.
The Yankees transferred right-handed starter Luis Severino and righty reliever Miguel Castro to the 60-day injured list. They also made another bullpen change, optioning Clarke Schmidt to Triple A and signing Carlos Espinal to a major-league contract before placing him on the active roster
(Photo: Stan Szeto / USA Today)
