It’s time to Take John Gant Seriously
With a name like John Gant, it’s easy to be lost in the shuffle of Major Leaguers.
There will be roughly 1000 people who play Major League Baseball this year. Odrisamer Despaigne, Rougned Odor, and Giovanny Gallegos stick with us because of their unique names.
Maybe John Gant does the same for you; maybe that’s because vanilla is your favorite flavor of ice cream.
After the first two months of the season, the best relief pitcher on the Cardinals hasn’t been the guy who throws it 103 mph and should be unhittable. Nope, it has been the guy who hasn’t quite stuck in the Majors as a starter in any of the last 3 years.
It’s been John Gant, the proud owner of a 1.17 ERA, a 0.70 WHIP, and 34 strikeouts in just under 31 innings. Gant’s WHIP is the best in baseball for anyone who has thrown that many innings and if we drop the innings threshold down to 20 to capture more releivers, Gant’s 0.70 is still 4th best.
That’s why when the Cardinals got 8 shutout innings from Adam Wainwright on Sunday (and the aforementioned Jordan Hicks caused some heartburn by allowing two of the first three hitters to reach), Gant was summoned to keep the tying run from scoring from first base. Gant did his job and earned his second save of the season in the process. For those watching, it felt like a shift in the Verified Closer of the Cardinals. Out is the 22-year-old flamethrower, in is the 26-year-old with his third club.
Gant’s route to the closer role is non-traditional. He was a 21st round pick by the Mets, who then used him in their annual their Kelly Johnson acquisition and traded him to the Braves in 2014/15. The Braves liked Gant and gave him a few starts for a bad team, and he did fairly well. The Braves then decided that they needed to compete in 2017 and dealt Gant (and others) for Jaime Garcia. Now a member of the Cardinals, Gant spent most of 2017 in the minors.
In 2018, the Cardinals gave Gant 19 starts, but protected him a bit by limiting his exposure to the lineup a third time. He responded with a 3.47 ERA, but the peripheral stats didn’t believe in the performance. He walked a few too many, struck out too few, and got lucky in the homerun department.
Fast forward to today, Gant is a reliever – a good reliever. As is the case with many starters-turned-relievers, he’s gained a few extra miles per hour on his fastball.
This is incredible though. Gant had been used for spurts as a reliever previously. He never threw 99 mph before. He never got particularly close. He’s now doing it regularly and the Cardinals have themselves a new weapon in the back end of the bullpen.
This might appear to be a story that we’ve heard quite a bit recently. Josh Hader followed the Andrew Miller path to dominant reliever and Brandon Morrow found a way to a big contract through the bullpen. And Dellin Betances long-ago solidified his role as bullpen guru after stumbling as a starter. Sean Newcomb is making a new life in the Braves bullpen. This isn’t the first time the Cardinals have done this either: Jordan Hicks was a starter in the minors and before him, Trevor Rosenthal made a few starts at the big league level. While we’re doing this, we may want to remember Aroldis Chapman’s moments as a starter in his first stateside Spring Trainings.
The difference between all of those guys and John Gant is stark. Each of them was a highly regarded prospect, known for their stuff. Gant was not. He was a piece in multiple minor trades, including one where the headliner was a late career Kelly Johnson. Now he’s a major piece himself, a headliner in his own right.
When we write headlines about the Cardinals’ bullpen, there may be more fun names for a linguist (Giovanny Gallegos has a certain mouthfeel), but baseball fans think Jon Gant is plenty fun.
-Sean Morash
