In history the New York Yankees has always developed a dominant left-hand throwing starter for example Lefty Gomez, Whitey Ford, Ron Guidry, Andy Pettitte, and now coming into the spotlight Jordan Montgomery. Jordan was never the headliner in pitching prospects but for his rookie season, Jordan showed a lot of surprises. Jordan is a crafty lefty that goes for command pitching low in strike zone but can dial his fastball up to 94-95 top, tries to get hitters to ground out, hides the ball well in his delivery and can get a handful of swing and misses with his curveball in and out of the strike zone. Jordan had an impressive rookie year posting a 3.88 era going 9-8 with 144 strikeouts in 155 innings which is really good being in the AL East where a home run derby can happen any day of the week. He will be entering 2018 as the 5th man in the rotation that is already loaded with star power at the age of 25. It would be nice to see if Andy Pettitte could go and mentor Jordan teaching him how to perfect his craft since they have similar traits in throwing motions, same type of body frame, same sequence of pitches compared to age, for both being a key young factor in the Yankees dynasty's, and most of all Andy could teach Monte some of his pick off moves since Andy was the best of keeping runners off there tempo. The difficulty that Jordan might encounter this season is that the AL East is always competitive with dominant power hitters. If he loses command of the strike zone with his off speed pitches, keeps his fastball elevated, and if he gets to changeup friendly then we can see a decline in performance, because of his changeup being flat and is a setup his other pitches, fastball not good enough to keep elevated, and off speed pitches can't be hanging in the strike zone. To me I don't believe that Jordan will struggle due to the team that he's on and the character that he holds to himself. Jordan has one of the top 3 best offenses in the league to back him up in run support, has one of top 3 best bullpens in the league which will help him keep the win, and has the least amount of stress in the rotation with CC as a veteran presence to guide Jordan if needed. I project Jordan to win at least 13 games with an era ranging from 3.5-3.9, and going over 170 innings with 160-180 strikeouts. Jordan could be the next Andy Pettitte for this new Yankee dynasty on the way, but we'll just have to see what the sophomore delivers in this exciting 2018 New York campaign.
|
|