Mets designate righthander Frankie Montas for assignment
Mets righthander Frankie Montas pitches during the first inning against the San Francisco Giants at Citi Field on Aug. 3, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
After signing a two-year deal last offseason, Frankie Montas’ Mets career lasted just 38 2/3 innings.
The righthander, who was signed to a $34 million contract last December, was designated for assignment, the team announced Tuesday; they've requested waivers so as to grant him his unconditional release. He was 3-2 in nine games with the Mets and pitched to a 6.28 ERA before his season-ending Tommy John surgery in August.
Outfielder Nick Morabito has taken his spot on the 40-man roster. Adding Morabito, their No. 16 prospect, to the roster protects him from the Rule 5 draft.
Montas, who began the season on the injured list with a high-grade right lat strain that he suffered in spring training, made his return in June, struggled enough to be relegated to the bullpen, and tore his UCL; Montas was going to miss all of next season regardless.
After the diagnosis, manager Carlos Mendoza hypothesized that the soreness in the area may have affected his performance.
“It’s probably got something to do” with it,” he said in August. “The velo was there but maybe having an injury like that affects him with his secondary pitches.”
The Mets had a slew of pitchers go down with serious injuries, and five suffered torn UCLs last year: Montas, Tylor Megill, Reed Garrett, Dedniel Nunez and Danny Young. Regardless, president of baseball operations David Stearns said he was confident in the team’s processes when it comes to injury prevention and recovery.
“If you look at our injuries in our organizations, even at the major-league level, we certainly are not outliers relative to the league,” Stearns said during the general managers meetings last week. “This is an industry-wide phenomenon. I have a lot of confidence in our medical staff. I think we have a very good medical staff.
“I think what happened to us is that we had a string of injuries to pitchers who were pitching very well and then the replacements for when those guys got hurt frankly didn’t pitch very well, and it really exacerbated the injury issues we had. But I don’t think we have an issue with our training protocols or our workload protocols or anything like that.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
