What happened to Frankie Montas, Yankees' worst midseason trade acquisition ever?

Whether the Yankees' "process" behind acquiring Frankie Montas was sound or not (it sure seems like it wasn't!) is not relevant in evaluating his career in pinstripes.

Bad. It was bad, bad, bad, actually, and it's now all but officially over following Aaron Boone's comments on Tuesday.

If the Yankees had acquired Montas at his peak last summer, of course we would view this deadline blockbuster differently. If the Yankees had surrendered three top-level minor-league pitchers they'd deemed replaceable (Ken Waldichuk, JP Sears, and Luis Medina) in exchange for reliever Lou Trivino and a healthy, All-Star right-hander, that would've felt like a coup.

But Montas' shoulder was an issue well before he was sent to the Yankees; he left a July 3, 2022 start in Oakland with shoulder inflammation, skipping two starts and returning nearly three weeks later. Brian Cashman knew this. The general public knew this. Whatever assurances Cashman was given about Montas' health before he pulled the trigger turned out to be incorrect assessments. Or maybe he knew Montas still felt, in his words, "not 100%" before he headed to New York? Oswald Peraza was kept out of the discounted trade package, after all...

"I wasn’t 100% healthy. I was trying to push through. I got traded to a new team and wanted to show what I could do. Things didn’t go the way I was expecting."

Frankie Montas

The quotes were damning. So were the results; Montas posted a 6.35 ERA in eight starts, left a start in Milwaukee with a recurrence of the injury, was rushed back to pitch in the ALCS (???), surrendered a solo home run in one inning of relief in Houston, then disappeared into the winter ... at which point he required surgery to fix the issue.

Where did Yankees right-handed pitcher Frankie Montas go?

Once upon a time, Montas targeted an August return from that procedure. As the calendar turns to September, that has officially been ruled out.

The right-hander's throwing program was somewhat silently shut down in mid-July for reappraisal, changing his pie-in-the-sky timeline once again. On Tuesday, Boone told reporters that Montas had resumed workouts, but wasn't an option moving forward.

"He’s throwing bullpens, but it’s probably not in the cards."

Aaron Boone, NJ.com

Probably not important right now, but Luis Castillo is currently fronting the rotation of the surging Seattle Mariners.

When one team acquires All-Star after All-Star, then all those All-Stars regress or develop chronic injuries immediately after changing uniforms, it's probably worth evaluating the group of executives responsible for choosing which All-Stars to acquire. Montas, a disappearing cautionary tale, will hopefully spark actual change in the Yankees' governing body moving forward. Probably won't, though.