Athletics sign reliable reliever

The 31-year-old righty has appeared in parts of eight MLB seasons, although he has between five and six years of service time overall. Gott has appeared with the Angels, Nationals, Giants, Brewers, Mariners and Mets over the course of his career. He turned in serviceable middle relief results between Seattle and New York this year, pitching to a 4.19 ERA through 58 innings.

Gott struck hitters out at an average 23.8% clip while walking fewer than 8% of opponents. He didn’t miss many bats on a per-pitch basis, generating swinging strikes on only 9.2% of his offerings. That came with a slight velocity dip. After averaging north of 95 MPH on his sinker and four-seam in 2022, he sat in the 93-94 MPH range last season.

Even in the absence of overpowering stuff, Gott posted better results than most Oakland relievers. Only the Rockies and Royals had a higher bullpen ERA than the 5.20 mark turned in by the A’s. Among the team’s relievers with 20+ frames, Austin Pruitt, Trevor May and Dany Jiménez worked to a sub-4.00 ERA. Pruitt was waived and elected free agency; May retired. Jiménez found his decent results in 22 1/3 innings with mediocre strikeout and walk rates.

Gott could therefore pick up some high-leverage work for skipper Mark Kotsay. He’ll return to free agency again next winter. As a decent veteran arm on what’s surely a low-cost guarantee, he could find himself on the move for a mid-level prospect at next summer’s trade deadline.