Frankie Montas will start Opening Day for the Reds, and that’s just fine

Manager David Bell made the call on Sunday afternoon.

There are no images in the Getty folder of Frankie Montas throwing pitches while wearing a Cincinnati Reds uniform. He seemingly signed just a couple of minutes ago, and while he’s made a pair of starts for the Reds in Cactus League play, apparently there wasn’t an image captured in his 4.2 IP on the mound.

Nevertheless, Reds manager David Bell made the call on Sunday that Montas, who signed a contract that will guarantee him $16 million before he and the team get to almost certainly decline a mutual option for 2025, will start for the Reds against the Washington Nationals on Opening Day. MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince, among others, relayed the news.

There are several hundred images in the Getty folder of Hunter Greene throwing pitches while wearing a Cincinnati Reds uniform. The former 2nd overall draft pick has been within the franchise since his selection in 2017, he’s made 46 starts for the big league club over the last two years, and the 6-year, $53 million extension he signed (that will take him at least through 2028) means he’s the player to whom the Reds have ‘most’ committed in length and dollar amount.

Greene was named the Opening Day starter for the Reds on March 9th of last spring training, earning that honor after he tossed 125.2 IP of 98 ERA+ ball for the Reds in 2022. You may recall that the Reds culled their pitching staff severely over the course of 2022, and by 2023 it was down to Greene to step into the role of the next frontman of the pitching staff. 112.0 IP of 95 ERA+ ball later, the Reds made splash after splash in the pitching market around their young core, adding the likes of Montas, Nick Martinez, and each of Emilio Pagan, Brent Suter, and Buck Farmer in free agency to fill the bullpen.

There seemed to be something of a collective surprise that it wasn’t Greene who got the nod again this year. Montas, for all his quality, did spend almost the entire year on the 60-day IL in 2023 after a serious shoulder injury, and Greene has been the ‘incumbent’ ace-in-waiting for years now. Still, Montas pitched to an impressive 117 ERA+ from the start of the 2018 season through the end of his tenure with Oakland at the 2022 trade deadline, piling up 505.2 IP of impressive experience along the way. And while his tenure with the Yankees was frought with injury and disappointment after that (much more the former than the latter), we need not look too far into the annals of Reds history to read how a 30 year old moved from the Yankees to Derek Johnson and the Reds to resurrect his career, do we?

Yes, Montas spent a lot of the 2023 season on the 60-day IL, but he looks great now.

Yes, Greene spent a lot of the 2023 season on the 60-day IL, and he looks great now, too.

Greene and Montas were going to start the first two games for the 2024 Reds one way or another, and now the order is set. For what it’s worth, Greene - who is working on both a new curveball and a new splitter - might well get the chance to squeeze in one more start of ‘practice’ with the new pitches while in Arizona now that he’s got two additional days before his first big league start (since there’s a scheduled day-off after Opening Day again).

I’m not trying to diminish the honor of pitching on Opening Day in Cincinnati. It’s a big deal, has been, and always will be. It’s just that the reaction by many almost seemed to suggest they thought the honor had been taken away from Greene, when despite his immense talent he’s not exactly seized that job and run with it. Montas will get that honor now, and maybe he’ll file that away so that when he buzzes his way through 32 starts of 3.24 ERA ball this year and can sign with someone again as a free agent, the city of Cincinnati and what the Reds have to offer resonates with him that much more.

Congrats to Frankie. I’m betting on a huge game from Hunter in game two now, too.