Finding Homes: Free Agents Jordan Montgomery, Aaron Civale, Jonah Heim

Jordan Montgomery helped the Rangers win their first World Series in 2023, but since then, things haven’t gone so well for him. First, he had a rough trip through free agency, then pitched poorly after signing a one-year deal with Arizona, left Scott Boras’ agency, publicly blasted Boras, got blasted by Diamondbacks managing partner Ken Kendrick… and underwent his second Tommy John surgery, which cost him all of the 2025 season. While rehabbing, he was even traded to the Brewers in a salary dump. After all that drama, now he’s a Ranger again.

On Wednesday morning, the day after Rangers pitchers and catchers reported to the team’s spring training facility in Surprise, Arizona, the Dallas Morning News’ Evan Grant reported that the 33-year-old lefty will join Texas on a one-year deal with a $1.25 million base salary and as-yet-unreported incentives. Montgomery had his surgery last April 1, so he won’t be ready until sometime in midseason, but the hope is that he can help the Rangers down the stretch.

With camps opening this week, Montgomery isn’t the only free agent who’s found a new home. On Tuesday, fellow starter Aaron Civale signed a one-year contract with the A’s, while Montgomery’s former Rangers batterymate Jonah Heim inked a one-year deal with the Braves. I’ll round all of these up below.

Jordan Montgomery, Rangers

Montgomery’s 2023 season was the best of his career. Acquired from the Cardinals on July 30 — his second pre-deadline trade in as many years — he posted the majors’ eighth-lowest ERA (3.20) while ranking 12th in WAR (4.2) and setting career bests in both of those categories, as well as in innings (188 2/3) and FIP (3.56). He capped that with a 2.90 ERA in 31 postseason innings, starting a pair of series-opening combined shutouts against the Rays (ALWCS) and the Astros (ALCS), and chipping in 2 1/3 innings of emergency relief following Max Scherzer’s injury-related exit in Game 7 of the ALCS. While his start against the Diamondbacks in Game 2 of the World Series was a dud, it didn’t stop the Rangers from winning their first championship.

As a free agent that winter, Montgomery was one of the Boras Four, along with Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, and Blake Snell. He ended up settling for a one-year, $25 million contract with the Diamondbacks on March 29, one that had a vesting player option for 2025. Though he was able to join the Diamondbacks in time to debut on April 19, and made three strong starts out of four to start the season, things soon unraveled. He missed three weeks in July due to right knee inflammation, was relegated to the bullpen late in the season, and struck out just 15.6% of hitters, down from 21.4% in 2023. His walk and home run rates both rose, and he finished with a gruesome 6.23 ERA and 4.48 FIP.

A big factor in Montgomery’s struggle was a drop in the average velocity of his sinker, from 93.3 mph in 2023 to 91.8 in ’24; as a result, the pitch was pummeled for a .376 average and .582 slugging percentage. According to both of our pitch modeling systems, his stuff and command declined, with his botOvr falling from 52 to 46 (on the 20-80 scouting scale) and his Pitching+ falling from 101 to 90 (on a scale where 100 is average).

Meanwhile, Montgomery left the Boras Corporation to be represented by Joel Wolfe and Nick Chanock of Wasserman. In August, he told the Boston Herald that Boras “kind of butchered” his free agency, including interest from the Red Sox that would have aligned with his wife’s dermatology residency at a Boston-area hospital. In October, Kendrick told the Burns & Gambo radio show that signing Montgomery had been “a horrible decision.” With Montgomery’s option for 2025 having vested at $22.5 million, the Diamondbacks tried to unload him but found no takers and appeared slated to slot him in long relief until the pitcher revealed he would need his second Tommy John surgery; his first took place in June 2018, when he was a Yankee. Thus, he didn’t pitch at all in 2025, though on July 31, he was sent to Milwaukee along with Shelby Miller and $5.14 million of his $7.14 million of remaining salary.

For his career, Montgomery owns a 4.03 ERA (96 ERA-) and a 3.85 FIP (91 FIP-) with a 21.5% strikeout rate. His Arizona debacle put a noticeable dent in those numbers: He entered 2024 with a career 3.68 ERA (88 ERA-), 3.75 FIP (87 ERA-), and 22.5% strikeout rate.

In joining the Rangers, Montgomery is reuniting with Skip Schumaker, who served as the Cardinals’ bench coach in 2022 before departing to spend two seasons managing the Marlins; Schumaker took over as Rangers manager when Bruce Bochy stepped down at the end of last season. The Texas rotation, which ranks sixth on our Depth Charts projections, will be fronted by Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi; the latter is coming off surgery to repair a sports hernia but has no restrictions as spring training opens. Righty Jack Leiter is a lock for the rotation after his strong rookie season, and lefty MacKenzie Gore, recently acquired from the Nationals, also figures to be part of it.

The fifth spot is up in the air. Kumar Rocker, the third overall pick of the 2022 draft, was hit for a 5.74 ERA and 4.88 FIP in his 64 1/3-inning rookie season, which ended with his being optioned to Triple-A Round Rock and then limited to bullpen sessions thereafter as he worked on his mechanics. The 26-year-old righty “is in a really good spot,” according to president of baseball operations Chris Young, for whatever that’s worth. Jacob Latz, the 29-year-old lefty who put up a 2.84 ERA and 3.72 FIP in eight starts and 25 relief appearances totaling 85 2/3 innings for the Rangers last year, is being stretched out as a starter, while 27-year-old lefty Cody Bradford, who didn’t pitch at all last year due to elbow problems that culminated in UCL internal brace surgery on June 25, is eyeing a late May return.

From deGrom — who has one 100-inning season out of the last six — on down the line, enough question marks surround the availability and workloads of those starters that finding room for a healthy Montgomery shouldn’t be too difficult. His low base salary makes this a move with very little downside, and he gets to return to a place where he was quite comfortable.

Aaron Civale, Athletics

Now 30 years old, Civale has been on the go for the past few years. He split 2023 between the Guardians and Rays, ’24 between the Rays and Brewers, and ’25 between the Brewers, White Sox, and Cubs. After getting rocked for five runs in three innings in his season debut for Milwaukee on March 30, he missed the next seven weeks due to a left hamstring strain, then returned and made four decent starts to lower his ERA to 4.91 and his FIP to 5.59. When the Brewers told him he would be moving to the bullpen after Jacob Misiorowski was called up in mid-June, Civale (through his agent Jack Toffey) requested a trade to a team that would start him.

In an object lesson in being careful what you wish for, the Brewers obliged by trading Civale to the White Sox, who not only lost 12 of the 14 games in which he pitched, but also scored exactly one stinkin’ run in eight of them, hardly enough to offset his 5.37 ERA. In late August, he was put on waivers, and the Cubs, in an act of crosstown mercy, picked him up… and stuck him in their bullpen, where he pitched well enough to make their postseason roster. He even threw 4 1/3 innings of shutout ball against Milwaukee in the Division Series opener, though the Brewers had the last laugh both in that game and the series. The baseball gods probably chuckled as well.

All told, Civale posted a 4.85 ERA and and 4.63 FIP with a 20.2% strikeout rate in 102 innings. His big problem was his 1.41 homers per nine, and for the second year in a row, lefties hit him pretty hard (.249/.335/.455). Both of our pitch modeling systems show that his stuff was down considerably, and his command and location didn’t make up for it; his botOvr fell from 46 to 42 and his Pitching+ from 99 to 95.

The A’s were hardly awful last year, going 76-86, but their starting pitching ranked 27th in ERA (4.85) and 28th in both FIP (4.93) and WAR (5.8). Hence their need for Civale, whom they brought in on a one-year, $6 million deal. It’s not exactly an ideal fit, as their minor league ballpark not only doesn’t do pitchers any favors, but also seems laid out to torment Civale specifically. Going by Statcast’s one-year numbers, since last season was the team’s first in Sacramento, Sutter Health Park inflated scoring by 8% and home runs by 12% overall… and by 17% for lefties. Yikes.

Civale joins a rotation that will be headed by righty Luis Severino and lefty Jeffrey Springs. On Tuesday, manager Mark Kotsay declared an “open competition” for the other two spots, with lefty Jacob Lopez and righty Luis Morales the top candidates based upon their promising partial-season showings. Righties Luis Medina, J.T. Ginn, and Gunnar Hogland are next on the depth chart, but coming off ERAs well above 5.00.

Thus, Civale has a real opportunity to show he’s rotation material, albeit a challenging one. Given that he’s changed teams midseason four times in the past three years, you can bank on the other 29 teams taking note if he no longer fits into the his new club’s plans.

Jonah Heim, Braves

Montgomery wasn’t the only Ranger for whom 2023 was a peak season. Heim, then in his age-28 campaign, had by far the best year of his career, hitting .258/.317/.438 (107 wRC+) with 18 home runs and 4.0 WAR. Not only did he set career highs in all those categories, he also made his lone All-Star team, won his lone Gold Glove, and of course, topped that sundae with a World Series ring.

It’s been downhill since; in fact, even that solid 2023 batting line conceals a second-half slump, as he dipped from a 122 wRC+ before the All-Star break to 80 after. He finished below replacement level in both 2024 (-0.1 WAR) and ’25 (-0.5 WAR), but not for a lack of playing time. Last season, while catching in 96 games and DHing in another 27, he hit just .213/.271/.332 (69 wRC+) with 11 homers. His defense also has fallen pretty far since 2023. By FanGraphs’ framing measure, he plunged from 9.3 runs above average to 3.7 below, with a similar drop in Statcast’s framing metric (from 12 to -2) accompanied by a smaller one in throwing (from 3 to 0).

So what happened? Heim’s workloads, while considerable, haven’t been extreme; he ranks 11th in the majors with 1,777 2/3 innings caught over the last two years after ranking seventh in 2023 with 993 1/3 innings. Catchers do tend to get banged up and keep playing — it tends to be a point of pride — so it bears noting that last May 21, the Rangers reported that Heim had a compressed nerve in his right hand after getting jammed on a swing, but he nonetheless started their next three games and six of the next eight while coming off the bench in the other two. That doesn’t explain everything, but it surely isn’t the first ding he shook off in recent years.

Peering at his numbers, one thing that does stand out is that the switch-hitting Heim isn’t pulling the ball in the air as often as he used to: From 2022 to ’25, his pull-air rates have progressed from 27.4% of batted balls to 25.5% to 17.3% to 16.7%. He’s been pulling the ball less often in general, while hitting it on the ground more — and overall, he’s just not hitting it as hard as he once did. What’s more, he slugged just .283 against four-seam fastballs in 2025 and whiffed on 27.2% of his swings against them; by Statcast’s measure, he was 12 runs below average on that pitch alone, the third-lowest mark among qualifiers.

With Heim headed into his final year of arbitration eligibility and due to make around $6 million, the Rangers chose to non-tender him. Instead, he’ll make $1.5 million on a one-year deal with the Braves. Drake Baldwin won NL Rookie of the Year honors and will be the starter for Atlanta, but backup Sean Murphy, who hit a modest .199/.300/.409 (97 wRC+) in his second straight year below the Mendoza Line, is expected to be sidelined until some time in May after undergoing surgery to repair a tear in his right hip labrum. Even in the depths of the past two years’ struggles, Heim is a better hitter than either Chadwick Tromp (63 career wRC+) or Sandy León (56 career wRC+), both of whom briefly appeared with the Braves last year and have returned on minor league deals with non-roster invitations. With the departure of DH Marcell Ozuna in free agency, Baldwin figures prominently in the Braves’ plan to rotate players through the DH slot, which could allow Heim to stick as a third catcher once Murphy returns. If not, at least he has a window of opportunity to show that a change of scenery and perhaps some adjustments can help him recover some level of productivity.