Staff Report

CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs, on Monday, traded pitcher Mike Montgomery to the Kansas City Royals for catcher Martin Maldonado.

Maldonado, 32, has played all or parts of the last nine seasons with Milwaukee (2011-16), the Los Angeles Angels (2017-18), Houston (2018) and Kansas City (2019), winning the Gold Glove for defensive excellence with the Angels in 2017. He has thrown out 122 of 327 attempted basestealers in his career, good for a 37.3 percent success rate, the best caught stealing percentage of any catcher in all of baseball starting in 2011 (minimum 600 games played). Maldonado is a career .220 hitter (442-for-2,005) with 87 doubles, 57 homers and 210 RBI in 686 career big league contests.

The right-handed hitter broke into the majors with Milwaukee in 2011 and averaged 71 games per year from 2012-16 before joining the Angels in 2017, when he hit 14 home runs with 19 doubles in 138 games, all career bests, to go along with his Gold Glove award and Wilson Defensive Player of the Year award. He split last year between the Angels and Astros, combining for a career-best 44 RBI, before joining the Royals prior to the 2019 campaign. Maldonado batted .227 (54-for-238) with 15 doubles, six home runs and 17 RBI in 74 games with the Royals this season.

Montgomery, 30, went 14-17 with three saves and a 3.74 ERA (133 ER/320.0 IP) in 119 regular season appearances (38 starts) with the Cubs covering the last four years since being acquired from Seattle near the 2016 trade deadline. In post-season play, Montgomery recorded a supremely important out in franchise history, closing out Game 7 of the 2016 World Series with a groundball to third base to record the save and help cap the Cubs’ first World Championship in 108 years. Montgomery went 1-2 with a 5.67 ERA (17 ER/27.0 IP) in 20 relief appearances with the Cubs this year.