Mike Montgomery’s Long Road to Kansas City
By: Nick Kappel
Tags: Kansas City Royals, Sports, Royals Baseball Insider, MLB, Mike Montgomery

Mike Montgomery’s Long Road to Kansas City

Eight years after being part of the “best prospect class” ever, Mike Montgomery is back with the Royals and hoping to lead the next generation of Kansas City prospects Nick Kappel Follow Sep 14, 2019 · 6 min read

This story is featured in Issue 6 of Royals Baseball Insider and is available for free to all fans who attend any game during the homestand at Kauffman Stadium from Sept. 13–15, 2019.

It was in 2011 when Baseball America dubbed the Royals’ farm system “the best prospect class anyone has ever seen.” The group was headlined by a record-setting nine Royals prospects in the publication’s annual top-100 list.

Position players Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Wil Myers all ranked among the top-10 prospects in baseball, but the Royals also boasted an embarrassment of young pitching prospects, including Mike Montgomery, Danny Duffy and Jake Odorizzi, among others.

The future in Kansas City was bright.

Three years later, the Royals revived baseball in Kansas City with a stunning playoff run that led to their first American League pennant since 1985. They returned to the World Series the following season, and won their second championship in franchise history.

Montgomery watched the title-clinching game at home.

Once thought to be a key cog on the next contending team in Kansas City, Montgomery was traded to Tampa Bay following the 2012 season in a deal that was widely regarded as the turning point for the franchise.

One of the players he was traded for was Wade Davis, who recorded the final out in the championship-clinching game in 2015. Montgomery recalls the bittersweet feeling that came over him as he watched Davis embrace with his former teammates.

“Why wasn’t that me?” he thought.

By way of trade to Seattle earlier that season, Montgomery made his Major League debut in 2015. He threw back-to-back shutouts in his fifth and sixth career starts, the first of which came vs. Kansas City, but he ended the season in the minors.

Meanwhile, his former Royals teammates — Hosmer, Moustakas and Duffy among them — were celebrating the game’s ultimate achievement.

“I was super thrilled for those guys,” he said. “I never thought I’d be experiencing the same thing a year later.”

But that’s exactly what happened, thanks to another trade — the third of his career. This time, it was the Chicago Cubs requesting his services. He joined the National League Central-leading Cubs in late July and posted a 2.82 ERA in 17 regular season appearances.

On November 2, exactly one year and one day after the Royals won the World Series, Montgomery got to play the part of Wade Davis, recording the final out in Game 7 of one of the most thrilling World Series in recent memory.

It clinched the Cubs’ first World Series in 108 years, captivating a baseball-hungry city with a title that several generations of fans had long awaited.

Montgomery admits now that, while winning the World Series was the most exciting moment of his career, he didn’t recognize the full scale of what had been accomplished.

“I didn’t know much about The Curse or the history of the team,” he said. “I was just happy to be there. I had a good stretch run in the playoffs, and then afterward you realize the significance of it.”

Montgomery settled in with the Cubs the following season, posting a 3.38 ERA in a career-high 130.2 innings between 30 relief appearances and 14 starts. He pitched effectively again in 2018, especially after moving to the starting rotation in late May, pitching to a 3.65 ERA over his last 20 outings, a career-high 19 of which were starts.

Despite his strong showing as a starter, he began this season in the bullpen, where he struggled before a stint on the Injured List sidelined him for more than a month. He returned in May, all the while expressing his desire to pitch in a starting role. But the Cubs kept him in the bullpen.

Following a Cubs loss in mid-July, manager Joe Maddon called Montgomery into his office. More than a decade after he was drafted, the now-30-year-old was being traded back to Kansas City.

“There was a lot of emotion because I was [with the Cubs] three and a half years and had a lot of success,” he said. “I hadn’t thought about ever coming back [to Kansas City]. But when I did hear the news of it, that little excitement came back. I know a lot of people here. You know when you’re drafted by a team, it’s always a special place for you.”

Part of that excitement was in being reunited with some of his former teammates, including Duffy, who Montgomery called shortly after he found out about the trade. Duffy was drafted by the Royals one year before Montgomery, and the two advanced throughout the minors together prior to the 2012 trade with Tampa Bay.

“I always thought we were going to pitch in the show together,” Duffy said. “I just didn’t think it would be a decade after I would’ve thought.”

The trade was a great fit for Montgomery and the Royals in a baseball sense, as the club can provide him an opportunity to pitch in a starting role.

After pitching to a 5.67 ERA in 20 relief appearances with the Cubs this season, the Royals implemented a plan to stretch him out upon his arrival to Kansas City. He threw just 45 pitches in his first start at Cleveland, and allowed five runs in 2.0 innings.

But as Montgomery’s pitch count rose over his next five starts, he began to show the talent Kansas City saw in him when they selected him out of Santa Clarita, California’s William S. Hart High School in 2008.

The left hander posted a 2.30 ERA over those five starts, including a career-high 12 strikeouts over 7.0 scoreless innings on August 10 in Detroit. He allowed just four hits and walked none in a 7–0 win, becoming just the third Royal to record 12 strikeouts and no walks in a game, joining Zack Greinke and Luke Hochevar.

The win was his first as a Royal, 11 years after he was drafted by the organization.

“I probably wouldn’t have believe it would take this long,” Montgomery said after that game. “I’ve had a lot of different experiences since I was last a Royal. To get my first win for the Royals feels good, and to do it this way with a career-high in strikeouts makes it even sweeter.”

Montgomery remains under team control for two seasons after this one, and hopes to continue to solidify his position in the Royals’ starting rotation.

Duffy, who is under contract through the 2021 season, has set his sights even higher.

“[Montgomery] was able to do something that literally every young pitcher dreams about doing, that’s throwing the last pitch of the World Series,” he said. “I hope that we can have something similar to that in the not too distant future.”