Will Rafael Montero be on the roster in 2015?

Rafael Montero signed very late compared to most players out of the Dominican Republic. Most kids sign around the age of 16 or 17, but Montero did not sign with the Mets until he was 20 years old. In his first year with the Mets organization he posted a 5-4 record to a tune of a 2.15 ERA. After 2011 he was on a few top prospect lists, but was not many, partially due to how late he came to America. His next two years were also very successful with sub-3.00 ERAs in both 2012 and 2013.

After the 2013 season Montero had propelled himself to near the top of the Mets Top Ten, only trailing fellow right-hander, Noah Syndergaard, and Travis d’Arnaud. He was poised to make his debut near the start of the season after only a few starts in Triple-A. Starting in 2014, he would come to have a struggle with his command increasing his BB/9 from 2.0 all the way up to 3.7. Prior to 2014, Montero was viewed as someone with pinpoint control and danced around the strike zone. With the hard and far hits of Vegas, the stats look very skewed compared to the rest of the league and what he did previously in his career, but he it is still starting the amount of walks he gave out. Montero likely would not have been called up when he did if not for injuries, but that also brought us Jacob deGrom, who went on to win the National League Rookie of the Year.

In his first four starts in the majors, Montero what sub-par outings in three of them and one go start when the Mets failed to give him proper run support. He pitched a total of 20 innings, 0-2 record, and struck out 17 batters. He was then sent down after the end of May to work on his control and give the Mets some fresh arms after a long five game series with Philadelphia. He came back up in mid-August and performed much better his second go-around with the Mets. He got roughed up against Washington in his first start back, but in his next five outings he only gave up 1 earned run in each start and none in either relief appearance. In those 24.1 innings he pitched to a tune of a 2.96 ERA, but a big BB/9 to 4.5.

With the potential for Montero what could they do with him? He is in the running for starting rotation, but out of the eight pitchers in the running, Montero has the most experience coming out of the bullpen, besides Bartolo Colon who has not pitched in relief since 1997. With a lot of power arms in the bullpen there is not much room for him there as well. Recent reports had talks of shipping Jenrry Mejia out of town, after a stunning season. Montero could be on his way of town himself, just because of the lack of room for him because he definitely deserves a spot on a big league roster. With Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Zack Wheeler ocks for the rotation there are only two spots remaining it does not look like he will be in the rotation, and with with other young power arms in the bullpen, Montero could be used to acquire a big name player at short. Montero would be a very valuable piece of the Mets going forward, but they have such a surplus of young controllable pitching that if the opportunity arises for the Mets to move Montero as part of a reasonable package for a big bat then Sandy Alderson should take the chance and make the move.