Royals sign free agent pitcher John Gant

Can the former Cardinals pitcher provide some much-needed depth?

After the Royals came away with a much-needed day game win in Kansas City against the Cardinals to end the I-70 series, they made a surprising move to add some pitching depth. Kansas City purchased the contract of former Twins starting pitcher John Gant from the independent Atlantic League where he was pitching for the Long Island Ducks.

The Royals have suffered some injuries to the pitching staff, with both Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans hitting the 15-day injured list, and Kyle Wright and Alec Marsh suffering setbacks in their rehab. Gant has the potential to provide some additional depth.

Gant played in the MLB from 2016 to 2021, mostly with the Cardinals, but also had short stints with the Braves and Twins. His best season came in 2018 when he had a 3.47 ERA, making 19 starts and seven relief appearances, worth 1.2 rWAR.

In 2021, he was traded to the Twins (alongside current Royal Evan Sisk) for J.A. Happ and was placed on waivers after the season, electing free agency over being outrighted to the minors. In six seasons in the big leagues he had a 3.89 ERA in 372 2/3 innings, but struggled with a high walk rate of 4.8 per-nine-innings.

He signed with the Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan for the 2022 season, but was injured most of the next two seasons. This year, he returned to the States, signing with the Ducks where he had a 1.71 ERA over four games and 21 innings.

Gant has a good frame for a pitcher, playing at 6’4/200, and appeared to have solid stuff in his time in the MLB. Early in his career, Gant offered three fastballs (four-seam, Sinker, Cutter) all sitting 90-96, but his velocity tapered in 2021 and caused a significant fall off in his production. Gant also offers a solid changeup and curveball to keep hitters' timing off and forces tons of swing and miss with his changeup. The dip in velocity limited the effectiveness of Gant's changeup and caused him to struggle in 2021.

Kansas City has proven to have what is likely the best pitching development staff in the MLB, and has proven time and time again that they can work with any pitcher put in front of them. Brian Sweeney and his staff have several directions they can go to make Gant a possible depth option down the line.

The Royals staff recently has been all about adding pitches to someone's arsenal. Seth Lugo throws a half a million different pitches, Michael Wacha added a slider, Kris Bubic added a slider and many more examples through the farm system. Gant already has a pitch mix with six different offerings, so it may be hard to add much more, but Gant may consider adding a sweeper to get more lateral movement glove side to pair with his solid fastball and sinker.

The other possibility is simple tinkering with technique in order to allow him to get his velocity back to where it was in 2020/2019. We are a ways removed from this, and it is possible Gant does not have it in him to get up to the 94/95 range we saw from him when he was with the Cardinals and I would not get my hopes too high. Gant has a good skillset and down the line it is possible he could provide some depth to a pitching staff that is incredibly strong, but is also quite thin.