Who is Trevor Gott and where does he fit in the Mariners bullpen?
Could Trevor Gott be the next diamond in the rough bullpen arm found by Jerry Dipoto?
Casey Sadler, Paul Sewald, Erik Swanson, Penn Murfee. All of these players had their careers take off in the Seattle Mariners bullpen, could Trevor Gott be the next?
On Monday evening Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the Seattle Mariners had come to terms with right-handed reliever Trevor Gott on a major league contract.
Gott spent last season with the Milwaukee Brewers, posting a 4.14 ERA and a 4.45 FIP over 45.2 innings. Before that, he had most recently appeared in the majors for San Francisco in 2020, where he struggled to find success.
His 2020 performance led to a frustrating 2021 where he shuttled back and forth between the Giants’ alternate site and Sacramento before electing free agency and signing with Milwaukee.
The 30-year-old right-hander doesn’t really have a track record of being an effective reliever at the big league level, struggling in most seasons of his four-plus year MLB career.
His arsenal includes five pitches, most notably three different types of fastballs and a curveball. Leading the way is a cutter he throws 33.9 percent of the time, followed by a four-seam fastball and a sinker. The cutter is his best pitch, and his fastball and sinker seem relatively pedestrian for the most part.
Most notably there is no slider, a staple of most relievers acquired by Jerry Dipoto and his regime. Seattle certainly must like a few of these offerings and could opt to help Gott develop fastballs that play off of each other similar to Kendall Graveman in 2021.
He also has a relatively low fastball and curveball spin, leaving us to wonder what Seattle may like about him.
The former sixth-round pick from Kentucky posted an xERA of just 2.94 last season, more than a full run less than his actual ERA. According to Baseball Savant he also posted a hard hit percentage of 31.5 percent, which would have ranked lower than Paul Sewald’s. He had very similar numbers to Matthew Festa and would have ranked in the top 7 percent of all MLB pitchers had he qualified.
In addition, Gott posted a 6.5 percent BB% and a 23.7 percent K%. His expected numbers were actually quite good, especially before injuries derailed some of his production late in the season.
He also has a funky and deceptive delivery which could be an addition to his value.
Seattle had no need to give him a major league contract if they did not like something about his profile. They could have easily signed him to a minor league deal and seen what they had in camp, but Dipoto and his team must believe in Gott.
The Mariners need to add more high-leverage-type arms to this bullpen, but taking a chance on Gott is an interesting middle-relief option for Seattle. We should have a lot of faith that Dipoto and this front office can once again build a very effective bullpen until proven otherwise.