Mason Montgomery’s first velocity spike came the traditional way. A Minor League starter since 2021 with the Rays, Tampa Bay moved him to the bullpen during the 2024 season while at Triple-A Durham, when his four-seam fastball was sitting at 91-92 mph just a year prior. It jumped to over 95 mph out of the bullpen.
Then, there was another jump. This velocity spike was less expected and took him into uncharted territory. In his second appearance of 2025 — now in the Majors — that fastball velocity wasn’t just in the mid-90s, but rather triple digits. It was against the Pirates on April 5 when he fired five pitches 100 mph or faster en route to striking out the side.
“The velo jump from the end of the ’24 season to ’25, even though it wasn’t as big as the starting to relieving jump, I think that was just the result of knowing what my job was going to be in the next year,” Montgomery said Tuesday over Zoom. “Just putting the work in in the offseason, getting stronger, training the arm and trying to [get] everything I could out of my body.”
Just how rare is a 98.7 mph fastball average for a lefty? Since the advent of pitch tracking in 2008, the only left-hander to average a higher fastball velocity over the course of a season was Aroldis Chapman (min. 500 pitches). Montgomery’s fastball moves, too, with Baseball Savant measuring it at 18.5 inches of vertical break, about 2.7 inches more than other comparable pitches. It’s not a fast, flat heater, it’s one that moves and can zip by hitters, a potentially elite weapon for a young pitcher.
“It’s pretty clear that’s probably the best thing that has happened to me as far as my career has gone,” Montgomery said. “… In the starting position, I kind of hit a road block. I had spent five, six months in that ’24 season just trying different things and trying to seek out success.
“Whenever I moved to the bullpen, it opened up my mind. It changed my mindset a little bit from a marathon mentality to a sprint. Like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go out there and I’m going to have 25-30 pitches, so let’s just give it all you got for 30 pitches.’ There is no need to make your arm last or work around guys or whatever it might have been.”
A change to the bullpen helped Montgomery find that extra velocity, reach the Majors and now become a Pirate. Montgomery was one of three players who came to Pittsburgh on Dec. 19 as part of a three-team trade between the Pirates, Astros and Rays, the others being his former Tampa Bay teammates Brandon Lowe and Jake Mangum.
Montgomery spent most of the season in the Rays’ bullpen, where he went 1-3 with a 5.67 ERA in 57 games (46 innings). While those stats on the back of the baseball card aren’t flattering, the peripherals painted a much kinder story. Some of that is due to that elite fastball velocity, but also his high-spin slider. That two-pitch mix resulted in a 30.1% strikeout rate and a 35.8% whiff rate, both of which ranked in the top 10% of pitchers last year. He also got more than his fair share of chases, with hitters swinging outside of the zone 31.5% of the time.
The most obvious issue is trying to cut down on the free passes — he walked 12.9% of his batters faced last year — but Montgomery has a skill set of a pitcher that has generally succeeded under the Pirates’ tutorship.
“We think the underlying stuff was better than the surface ERA,” general manager Ben Cherington said after the trade. “Someone we think we can really grow with.”
“I don’t know if you guys have done your research on it, but I mean, 20-plus inches of carry is legit,” Lowe said of Montgomery’s fastball. “Being somebody that’s had to face those kind of metrics before, I don’t understand how he ever gives up a hit.”
Most of the lefties in the Pirates’ bullpen the last few years have been soft tossers. Between Montgomery and free agent Gregory Soto, they’re positioned to have some of the hardest-throwing southpaws in the game. There’s plenty of opportunity in the Bucs’ bullpen, and an elite fastball could make him a major player in the late innings at some point in 2026.
“There are a lot of people I can learn from,” Montgomery said about joining the Pirates’ staff. “I’m excited for that. I was talking to Brandon and Jake. They were like, ‘You should be excited. This is one of the better pitching staffs in the league.’ I’m excited. It’ll be fun. There are going to be some learning opportunities.”
