Mets demote big-money offseason signing

The New York Mets are working hard to avoid the sunk cost fallacy.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza announced on Tuesday that righty pitcher Frankie Montas is being demoted. Montas has been removed from the rotation and will now pitch out of the bullpen, per SportsNet New York.

The 32-year-old Montas just signed with the Mets this past offseason on a two-year, $34 million contract. That made Montas the third-highest-paid pitcher on the roster by average annual value (trailing only Sean Manaea and Edwin Diaz).

But Montas’ time with the Mets got off to a bad start after he suffered a lat injury in February that sidelined him for the start of the 2025 season. Montas did not debut for the Mets until late June and had posted an ugly 6.38 ERA with a 1.56 WHIP over seven total starts for them this season.

The Mets were clearly banking on Montas being a meaningful rotation piece for them in 2025, perhaps hoping for Montas to recover the form that allowed him to finish sixth in AL Cy Young voting for the then-Oakland Athletics in 2022. But instead, the Mets now just have an expensive new reliever.

At 63-55 overall this season, the Mets are fortunate that they have a stellar bullpen featuring some All-Star pieces, including one whom they just acquired at the trade deadline. That means that they can afford to use Montas in lower-leverage relief situations to try to get him right again. Still, this obviously was not at all what the Mets envisioned when they decided to pay Montas a whopping $17 million per year last winter.