The Cardinals and right-handed reliever John Gant have reached a one-year, $2.1MM agreement to avoid arbitration, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. His salary is fully guaranteed.
Gant had been projected to earn $1.5MM to $1.9MM in arbitration, so the actual salary he’ll make in 2021 isn’t too far off from that. The 28-year-old seems well worth the money he’ll make next season, as he has been a highly productive member of the Cardinals’ bullpen over the past few seasons.
Gant debuted in 2016 with the Braves, with whom he didn’t post great numbers that season. The Braves then traded Gant to the Cardinals in a deal involving Jaime Garcia, but he was hardly lights-out during his initial action in St. Louis. However, Gant has been an integral part of the Cardinals’ bullpen dating back to 2018. The 28-year-old owns a 3.46 ERA/3.81 FIP with 7.97 K/9, 4.52 BB/9 and a 46.6 percent groundball rate in 195 1/3 innings in the past three seasons. Next year will be Gant’s penultimate season of team control.
I think about all the stats from the Cardinals in the covid 2020 season are not really reflective of their normal stats, having to play so many games in such a short amount of time. I’m sure that was tiring on all of them and affected their performance to some degree.
Yes but they can’t go out and sign no one cause of it
Agreed! not sure a 60 game season is a reasonable standard in any scenario
Huh. Projected to make $1.5-1.9M in arbitration and signs for $2.1M. Someone please send Mo back to school to understand how numbers work.
Gant’s agent must have played them and told them they were filing for a $2.5M salary in arbitration. That’s the only way this signing makes any sense. For a team that’s claiming they have no money to spend, giving an extra $400K to an average reliever certainly seems excessive.
No it doesn’t.
What’s a couple hundo between friends.
Projections can be wrong.
Really glad to see this. At least they aren’t nontendering all of their productive guys
Gant has been very solid, at one point figured he might factor into a possible rotation spot.
Cardinals are gonna win the NL Central in 2021. They need one more solid corner OF to go along with Carlson. You can platoon Bader and someone else in CF, or just give the job to Bader; marvel at his defense each night and hope he can hit .250 with a modicum of pop and speed.
Love the Cardinals pitching that was almost unfairly taxed last season due to all the cancellations that forced double-headers and precious few off days.
Cubs look like they are starting a rebuild. Brewers have no starting pitching of note and can’t seem to find a 3B. Pirates? Don’t even have to comment on them. If the entire 162 game schedule is played in 2021, the Pirates might lose 110 games.
Finally, the Reds were a big disappointment last year. Solid starting pitching and a decent bullpen., yet they were once again also-rans. Need middle infielders and a solid CF who can play everyday. Love Senzel’s bat, but he’s starting to resemble David Dahl and Roman Quinn, who, if I mentioned all their injuries would surely qualify as a HIPPA violation.
Cardinals are not going to win the Central unless a .500 baseball team can win it. Edmon is a good little player and they definitely need his bat in the line up.
But——- Letting a 2 time Gold Glove winner just walk is crazy when they can now negotiate Wong a contract deferring money to keep their payroll manageable.
There is going to be a huge hole up the middle of which Wong could cover on defense. Where to play Edmon 2nd or 3rd?
Plus—- you can bet your bottom dollar John Mozeliak WILL NOT trade or sign a young impact bat that can single handily transform their offense into better than mediocre.
Mozeliak will do his normal thing. Either nothing at all or go looking to waste more money on Over the Hill low hanging fruit and dumpster diving like a vulture over other teams older, less than average cast offs.
Time and the game has past Mozeliak by. With a combination of Owners funneling all of their extra cash into their Ballpark Village—— we’ll see basically the same team as last season. Poor offense and a sub par defense.
Unless the Owners get off their pocket books and add a couple of players such as D. J. Lemieu and trade for Nolan Arenaldo.
If I remember right, he was a Kelly Johnson nab for the braves, flipped him for Garcia, which we then flipped for Ynoa… who looks like he might have a solid future for the braves
If you are going to overpay anyway, then why not throw an extra million or so into the pot and sign him for two years for say 2.9 or so? I want to get into a card game with whoever is figuring deals like this for the red birds
The Cards WILL NOT win the Central!!!
Weaker defense without Wong. Same ole Swing and miss offense.
The only way the Cardinals can improve would to be able to sign D. J. Lemeiu and trade for Nolan Arenaldo.
Don’t count on something like that from the current front office and owners.
Are you going to keep repeating the same thing over and over, would love to see you try and do the GM job without ownership giving you money to actually use to make the team better! Cardinals would finish last!
Sorry about the repeated post. I didn’t see where it had printed. RoadRunner38— you are absolutely correct about the Cardinals Owners!!
DeWitt always says he ways to make sure the Cardinals are competitive.
What is the Owners definition of competitive?? I do believe their idea of competitive is a team which can be only over .500. At least that’s the only thing their bragging on. For the last— so many years the Cards have had an over .500 season.
John Gant is CRIMINALLY underrated, just like the whole St. Louis bullpen. Really effective, but never gets much recognition.