The St. Louis Cardinals rotation has a clear leader - Jordan Montgomery. Through 15 starts this year, the left-hander has 2.0 fWAR, which is 0.5 ahead of the next closest member of the rotation - Miles Mikolas.
Now I wouldn’t blame you if you thought Montgomery had been good but not that good. He had a rough patch and some good starts but you wouldn’t expect him to be the 16th best pitcher in baseball according to fWAR, would you? But that’s exactly what he’s been.
He’s sandwiched right between Spencer Strider and Aaron Nola in fWAR this year, which is great company but not exactly the crowd you might expect Montgomery to be in.