Miguel Montero Cost Miguel Montero His Job, Not Trea Turner

Miguel Montero had quite the fall from grace. After a very rough night behind the plate, allowing 7 steals by the Nationals (including 4 by rising Nationals superstar Trea Turner), Montero gave a very candid post-game interview, blasting battery-mate Jake Arrieta on his slow delivery:

It really sucked because the stolen bases go to me. And when you really look at it, the pitcher doesn’t give me any time. So it’s just like, “Yeah, okay, Miggy can’t throw nobody out.” Yeah, but my pitchers don’t hold anybody on. It’s tough because doesn’t matter how much work I put on footwork and throwing an everything, because if I don’t get a chance to throw — that’s the reason they were running left and right today, because they know he was slow to plate. Simple as that.

Montero was DFA’d by the Cubs this Wednesday and said his goodbyes to his team, and while it may be tempting to point to the Nationals running wild on Montero as the cause of his termination, there’s a lot more at play here.

Montero’s Interview Was Highly Unprofessional

Montero’s candidness in the interview, while illuminating and technically correct (Arrieta is generally one of the slower pitchers to the plate, and was especially slow that night, according to Travis Sawchik of Fangraphs), made him few friends within the Cubs organization.

In general, if a player screws up, his teammates won’t go on the radio blaring their dissatisfaction publicly. It’s one of the “Unwritten Rules” of baseball. Mercifully for newspapers, teammates don’t always follow this rule — TheBaseballCodes.com has collected a plethora of incidents where teammates badmouthed each other to press, and (spoiler alert!) it never ends well for the involved parties.

Badmouthing teammates causes unnecessary friction, raises tensions, and causes personal conflicts to spill onto the baseball field. Montero’s comments do nothing to help a floundering Chicago team that is desperately trying to look like contenders. Or maybe they’re the result of frustration with the Cubs’ record. Either way, Montero is simply making team chemistry worse by calling out Arrieta.

Joe Maddon and Theo Epstein pointed to Montero’s comments as the reason for his demotion. Said Epstein:

When something goes wrong on the field we expect our players to take the blame, step up and proactively assume the blame for it, even if it’s not their fault, that’s the way to be a good teammate. He completely agreed when it was pointed out to him and he apologized. After thinking about it some more, I just came to the conclusion that now more than ever we need to be a team. This was an example of being a bad teammate publicly and that we’d be better off moving on and not standing for it.

Epstein is absolutely correct here. Montero isn’t being a good teammate in this instance, and in a clubhouse full of unfulfilled expectations, Montero has no place on the team with his attitude.

Montero’s Comments Were Also Pretty Dumb to Make

I say that “Montero has no place on the team with his attitude”. If this is the case, usually teams will attempt to address the “attitude” part of that first, instead of the “place on the team” part — because most players have a significant role to play on an MLB team, in addition to a good chunk of change owed towards them to play.

Montero, however, sorely misjudged his position. Montero had lost significant playing time to fellow catcher Wilson Contreras, and thus far this season had been used as Arrieta’s catcher and as a backup.

Arrieta was one of the big reasons that Montero was sticking around with the Cubs — but Montero just openly criticized him to the media. Complaining to the media about your biggest source of playing time is not wise.

Furthermore, complaining about Arrieta is essentially an admission that Montero is unable to work with him to control the run-game — while Arrieta certainly has his issues with time-to-the-plate, as a catcher, Montero should do what he can to compensate for Arrieta’s issues. Montero’s pop-times indicates that, at this point in his career, he’s not prepared.

Montero’s comments indicate that he and Arrieta aren’t good fits for each other — as a result, he doesn’t really have a place on the team.

He’s Not the Catcher He Used To Be

Montero has simply been terrible with catching runners stealing. Runners have gone 31/31 in stolen base attempts this season. That’s almost unacceptable as a catcher.

Yes — some of it has to do with the Cubs’ pitchers being slow to the plate. On a pitching staff with Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester, that’s to be expected. However, Montero shares a fair share of the blame — Montero is second-to-last in the majors in “pop-time”, the amount of time it takes for a catcher to catch a pitch and throw down to second/third.

While Montero’s bat has rebounded after a terrible 2016, the Cubs have already made it clear that Wilson Contreras is the catcher of the future, owing to his at-least-average catching abilities and solid bat. Montero is the backup catcher for the Cubs — or, he was.

The Nationals' game was a microcosm for Montero’s struggles this season, but it’s unlikely that the Cubs would have DFA’d Montero on the basis of Tuesday’s performance. Montero’s poor performance throughout the season coupled with his even-poorer judgment in making his comments about Arrieta was what cost him his job, not Trea Turner.

Montero still has a career in baseball, and will probably be a solid pickup for an MLB team looking for a decent bat in their backup catcher — but they’ll need to look past his poor attitude. Hopefully Montero brings a better attitude to his next team.