Elephant Rumblings: A’s agree to terms with Trevor Gott

MLB news roundup

Happy Wednesday, Athletics Nation!

The A’s heralded a new deal with veteran reliever Trevor Gott last week, and yesterday it was made official.

The righty has signed a one year, $1.5 million contract with the A’s per Martin Gallegos at MLB.com. He was projected to make $2 million in 2024 per Anthony Franco at MLB Trade Rumors, but the Mets, whose bullpen Gott spent the latter half of the 2023 season in, opted to non-tender the 31-year-old. The A’s will be Gott’s seventh Big League team since he debuted with the Angels in 2015.

Gallegos notes that Gott is now the most experienced pitcher on the A’s roster, but this is only true in terms of service time: Paul Blackburn has logged 353 MLB innings to Gott’s 243⅔. Gott has a career 8.20 K/9, 3.25 BB/9, and an FIP of 4.24.

Last season, Gott showed signs of progression with 9.62 K/9, 3.28 BB/9, and 3.20 FIP in 58 innings with the Mariners and Mets. His unremarkable 4.19 ERA and eyebrow-raising 1.41 WHIP may have resulted from some bad luck, as batters averaged .343 on balls in play, significantly higher than Gott’s career .288 BABIP. Gallegos also mentioned that Gott’s barrel rate ranked in the 92nd percentile in 2023.

All in all, Gott seems like a good get for an A’s bullpen that definitely needs reinforcement. He should be one of the A’s better relievers in 2024 and could be in the mix for closing duties.

A’s Coverage:

• 2023 Athletics Season in Review: Seth Brown
• A’s add veteran reliever Gott for one year, $1.5 million
• Confidence the key to Soderstrom’s success
• Oakland Ballers Sign Left-Handed Starter

MLB News & Interest:

• Dodgers Acquire Tyler Glasnow, Manuel Margot; Glasnow Signed To Contract Extension
• Being baseball’s highest-paid player: Ohtani is latest in long line of record setters ($)
• Pirates, Andrew McCutchen Reportedly Agree To One-Year Deal
• Latest On Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s Market
• Amazon could help Diamond Sports out of bankruptcy, but impact on MLB might be limited: Sources ($)
• Today in Baseball History

Best of X:

Roster moves.

The A’s don’t wanna hear it. Apparently they turned off replies to their X account yesterday, but later re-enabled the feature after a huge backlash that any dummy should have seen coming.

Apropos, a well-played meme.

A worthy cause.

New season is right around the corner.