Yankees release Rafael Montero

The Yankees have released veteran right-handed reliever Rafael Montero, per an announcement from their Triple-A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. He’d signed a minor league deal back in February.

Montero, 36 in October, hasn’t pitched in the majors yet this season. If he doesn’t latch on with another club and make it to the big leagues, it’d be the first season since 2018 he hasn’t logged a major league inning. Even that 2018 season was technically spent in the majors, however, as Montero was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery on the 60-day injured list. Including that year, he’s spent the past dozen seasons as a big leaguer.

Montero’s season was delayed due to visa issues that prevented him from getting to camp on time with the Yankees. Since he didn’t pitch at all during camp, he opened the season in extended spring as he built up toward joining the RailRiders in Scranton.

That delay pushed his season debut to the final few days of April. After missing a month of the year, he’s pitched 27 innings and logged an unsightly 5.67 ERA in that time. That earned run average is at least partly skewed by an enormous .385 average on balls in play, however. Montero has fanned a strong 25.8% of his opponents against a manageable 10.2% walk rate. He’s only plunked one batter, and opponents have only connected on three homers — exactly one round-tripper per nine frames. Montero’s 44.6% ground-ball rate, 34.1% opponents’ chase rate and 11.8% swinging-strike rate are all better-than-average marks.

Montero hasn’t been giving up too much hard contact; his opponents have averaged 89.5 mph off the bat with a 38% hard-hit rate. His velocity isn’t close to its peak, when he averaged 96.1 mph on his four-seamer with the 2023 Astros, but he’s sitting 93.9 mph on his four-seamer and 94.1 mph on his sinker, so he’s hardly a soft-tosser even as he settles into his mid-30s.

Clubs in search of bullpen help can now weigh a minor league look at the veteran Montero, whose most recent action in the big leagues saw him post a 4.48 ERA, 22.9% strikeout rate, 14.6% walk rate and 48.4% ground-ball rate in 60 1/3 innings between the Braves, Astros and Tigers last season. He finished out the ’25 season with Detroit, posting a 2.86 ERA (1.53 in his final 17 outings) through 22 frames.