When 'Later' Makes More Sense Than 'Now'
Why Jordan Montgomery and Evan Phillips could be worth the wait
The Atlanta Braves don’t have much roster flexibility right now.
Their rotation depth is real, but it’s also fragile in a very specific way. Most of the pitchers competing for back-end roles are out of minor league options, meaning they either make the team, move to the bullpen, get traded, or get exposed to waivers. There isn’t much room for patience.
But what if the Braves didn’t need help now?
There’s a narrow class of players who can reinforce a roster without complicating Opening Day decisions: injured pitchers who won’t be available until midseason, but could meaningfully change how the season looks in October. Starter Jordan Montgomery and reliever Evan Phillips both fit that description, and signing either would be about protecting the Braves from themselves later, not solving anything in April.
Let’s talk about it.
What does the team need?
Here’s the real issue facing the Braves this season:
They don’t need innings in April.
They need to build in a cushion for the dog days of summer, when they have seventeen consecutive games coming out of the All-Star Break1 and several of the starters are running on fumes.
The conversation about adding a pitcher like Chris Bassitt or Lucas Giolito to the roster has been framed around having an additional reliable source of innings so that the core postseason starters - Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, Spencer Strider, Hurston Waldrep, and Reynaldo López - don’t burn themselves out in the regular season.
Adding a starter now, however, does nothing but push some of the team’s back-end depth options off the roster.
But if you could add that player to the team sometime this summer? Well, natural attrition likely will have solved that problem for you. There’s an old adage that says ‘Depth will always work itself out’, whether through injury or poor performance.
Let's talk about why these two arms are worth discussing.
Montgomery: Bulk innings insurance
Jordan Montgomery was coming off a three-season stretch (2021-2023) where he pitched to a 3.48 ERA/3.62 FIP across 524.1 innings when he signed a one-year, $25M contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training in 2024. Yet for some reason, Montgomery was unable to get the long-term commitment desired by him (and his agent Scott Boras) and settled for a short-term pact with Arizona.
But signing late in spring training had its challenges: Montgomery wasn’t ready for the season.
The lefthander pitched to a 6.23 ERA/4.48 FIP across a tumultuous season with the Snakes, culminating in some harsh words directed his way from owner Ken Kendrick, who took the blame while criticizing the pitcher’s performance.
“It wasn't in our game plan when he was signed right at the end of spring training, and looking back in hindsight, [it was] a horrible decision to have invested that money in a guy that performed as poorly as he did. It's our biggest mistake this season from a talent standpoint, and I'm the perpetrator of that.”
In that ‘mistake’ of a contract was another bitter pill for Arizona to swallow: A vesting player option. Montgomery opted into his $22.5M salary for 2025 soon after Kendrick’s comments, securing significantly more money than he would have earned on the free agent market.
He then went down the next spring to a UCL injury, having Tommy John surgery in March. Arizona eventually traded him away at the trade deadline, and he went to free agency after the season.
Prior to his injury, during that impressive three-year stretch from ‘21-’23, Montgomery sported a five-pitch mix centered around a sinker, changeup and curveball, throwing occasional four-seamers and a few cutters. He later swapped the cutter for a tight slider, but it’s the basis of a six-pitch mix, something preferred by Braves pitching coach Jeremy Hefner.
Adding a two-time Tommy John patient is a bit of a gamble for the Braves, but his surgeon being Atlanta’s preferred elbow doctor in Dr. Keith Meister likely softens the blow. Due back in July, the Braves have plenty of time to ease him back into action without asking for too much from the veteran.
Remember, Montgomery doesn’t have to be great. He just needs to exist as an option when Atlanta needs him the most: The heart of the regular season.
That’s around the perfect time for the Braves to back off some of their starters a bit. There’s no need to push Schwellenbach to 190 regular-season innings next year, not if you’re planning on making a postseason run. Chris Sale doesn’t need to be pushed in July and August; push him in October instead. Strider doesn’t need to attempt to carry a rotation as he’s coming off of an injury-marred season and looking to recapture his 2023 form.
Montgomery can provide rotation insurance and his value actually rises as innings pile up elsewhere. He might not be the only mid-season option for innings, either. Atlanta’s own AJ Smith-Shawver went down in early May with his own UCL tear and visited Dr. Meister in Dallas, TX soon after. Smith-Shawver’s more of an addition for the stretch run than a midseason return, however, owing to his injury coming two months after Montgomery’s.
Phillips: The leverage weapon
The case for Phillips is a completely different kind of bet from Montgomery. The goal of adding the starter in Montgomery is to get through 162. The aim with a contract offer to Phillips isn’t about surviving the regular season; it’s about shortening October games.
From 2022-2024 in Los Angeles with the Dodgers, Phillips threw 179.1 innings of 2.21 ERA/2.76 FIP baseball. He excelled in all situations, locking down 44 saves with just 8 losses on his ledger and holding right-handed hitters to an anemic .165/.225/.247 line and lefties to a not-much-better .214/.272/.349.
Phillips pairs his frisbee-esque sweeper with all three fastball types for a power arsenal, one that makes him a staple of the “Pitching Ninja” social media feed.
Being able to add a proven late-innings option for the second half of the season could do wonders for a Braves bullpen that is impressive on paper but has some warning signs. Returning closer Raisel Iglesias is racing against Father Time, set to play the 2026 season at the age of 36 and having already seen his fastball velocity drop by 7/10ths of a mph last year. Robert Suarez is a fastball-dominant reliever who has a similar profile to Iglesias: changeup dominant, but lacking reliable breaking balls to fall back on. Lefty setup man Dylan Lee suffered from outlier homer production last year, while top righty setup man Joe Jiménez is once again medically questionable to both return to the field and his dominant 2024 form.
With Phillips set to return sometime after the All-Star Break, adding his stuff to Atlanta’s bullpen could answer a lot of questions that come up over the season’s first few months. 2
The real question: Can Atlanta afford to wait?
There are a few concerns with attempting this strategy; let’s go through them each in turn.
Can Atlanta tie up a 40-man spot?
The good news here is that any time on the 40-man roster will be temporary. With both pitchers not expected back until later in the season, moving either of them to the 60-day injured list as soon as pitchers and catchers report is in the cards. While the Braves will need to create a single 40-man spot for the initial signing - you can’t sign a player directly to the 60-day - it’s easier to justify losing the 40th player on the roster now than in the heart of spring or the regular season.
Are they confident enough in early-season pitching depth?
This is really more of a question about Montgomery than Phillips, but it appears that they are. Despite all of the public requests and social media commotion, Atlanta has not yet signed a veteran like Bassitt or Giolito for the rotation. They were also willing to potentially lose one of their depth starters in José Suarez to a waiver claim two weeks ago, although they were able to get him back when Baltimore subsequently tried the same maneuver Atlanta attempted.
Does this force uncomfortable DFA decisions later?
Only if everyone stays healthy…and when’s the last time that happened? Returning Montgomery or Phillips from the 60-day injured list in-season will require creating a spot on the 40-man roster, but any injured player who is going to be out for at least two months presents an opportunity to replace one 60-day IL designation with another.
Adding them to the active roster will require the creation of a 26-man roster spot, although if Phillips (or Smith-Shawver) isn’t activated until September, the rosters will have expanded and there will be an additional spot available.
What’s the downside here?
Provided their salary asks fit within Atlanta’s remaining spending capacity, either of these signings makes sense. If Atlanta is going to take an injury gamble, it should be on players who change outcomes, not just cover innings. Montgomery protects the rotation from itself - no one trusts Sale or Strider to come to the coaching staff and ask to skip a start because they’re fatigued. Phillips protects leads, something we saw firsthand is valuable when Atlanta’s bullpen was a significant factor in last season’s 21-35 record in one-run games.
Waiting only works if the payoff is worth the patience. Montgomery and Phillips might be worth it.
Really: From Friday, July 17th through Sunday, August 2nd, the Braves don’t have a single off day.
And in October - Phillips has 15.1 career postseason innings with 21 strikeouts and exactly zero runs allowed.
Great article (and episode)! Loved this discussions about candidates that are not the names everyone is talking about, but are real posible "AA candidates". This are the ones that usually we end up saying "maybe AA or someone in his office reads Braves Today"
It may be a thing where--if the dodgers are doing their dog walk through the West and the other big market teams are dominating teams may be closer to selling than holding on for this playoff run. The Giants last year were sellers and then made a run and almost made the playoffs. I could see more teams going ahead and selling knowing they still could possibly with the expanded playoffs make a run. The bar is so much lower. Get in and catch fire and anything can happen. That being said, the Braves may be able to pick up more for less in trades as other teams flood the market in the wake of so many super teams and so many others not being able to compete payroll wise.