The Indians are selecting the contract of outfielder-turned-pitcher Anthony Gose, as first reported by Indians Prospective (on Twitter). The left-hander will be appearing in the Majors for the first time since 2016 — and for the first time ever as a pitcher.
Gose, now 31 years old, was a two-way star in high school and a second-round draft choice by the Phillies back in 2008. He focused solely on developing as an outfielder, and by the 2011-12 offseason, Gose ranked as a consensus top 100 prospect in all of baseball. He played the 2011 season as a 20-year-old in Double-A (about four years younger than the league-average age) and slashed .253/.349/.415 with 16 home runs, 20 doubles, seven triples and 70 stolen bases — the second 70-steal season of his young professional career.
In 2010, the Phillies traded Gose to the Astros alongside J.A. Happ and Jonathan Villar in the trade that brought Roy Oswalt to Philadelphia. Houston immediately flipped Gose to the Blue Jays for corner-infield prospect Brett Wallace, who’d been a first-round pick in 2008 and was a highly regarded prospect himself at the time.
Gose made his big league debut with the Jays as a 21-year-old in 2012 but never really found his footing in Toronto. He spent three seasons as an oft-optioned member of the Jays’ outfield but managed just a .234/.301/.332 output in that time. The Blue Jays and Tigers swapped Gose for second baseman Devon Travis in the 2014-15 offseason, and Gose only found marginally more success in Detroit. He batted .254/.321/.367 in his first season as a Tiger but played just 30 games in his second season (2016).
Those struggles at the plate carried over into Triple-A, and beginning in 2017, the Tigers gave Gose the opportunity to work off the mound all the way down in Class-A Advanced. The transition wasn’t particularly smooth, as one might expect. Gose appeared in 11 games, allowing nine runs in 10 2/3 innings. He fanned 14 of the 45 hitters he faced (31.1 percent), but the Tigers removed him from their 40-man roster and he opted for free agency at season’s end.
Gose signed a minor league pact with the Rangers in the 2017-18 offseason and was selected by the Astros in the Rule 5 Draft just days later. He didn’t make it out of Spring Training with the ’Stros before being returned to the Rangers. Gose made it to Double-A as a pitcher in the Rangers’ system and clearly intrigued the Indians’ baseball ops department enough to sign him as a minor league free agent the following offseason.
Gose has hung on with Cleveland ever since, but he hasn’t gotten a call to the big leagues until today. The lefty pitched for Team USA in the Olympics earlier this summer, and he’s had a generally solid season on the mound. Walks have been an issue since he made the move to the mound, and that’s true to an extent this season as well. Gose has worked to a 3.55 ERA with a hefty 34 percent strikeout rate but a bloated 19.4 percent walk rate.
However, most of those command issues came early in the season. Since returning from the Olympic team, Gose has yielded just one run in 14 frames. He’s walked six of the 52 batters he’s faced in that time (11.5 percent) and fanned a whopping 22 of them (42.3 percent). Given that recent run of dominance, it’s hardly a surprise that Cleveland is both rewarding Gose’s tenacity and also taking the opportunity to get a late look at him in the big leagues.
While Gose has appeared in parts of five big league seasons in the past, he has yet to even amass three years of Major League service time. As such, Cleveland would be able to control him all the way through the 2025 season — if he is indeed able to stick as a pitcher. Gose, by all accounts, has built his heater up to sit in the upper-90s and at times reach triple digits. Opponents are hitting just .172/.333/.328 against him so far in 2021 — including a .086/.192/.154 batting line since he returned from the Olympics.
It’s a frankly remarkable journey for Gose, who has been with four organizations in five years since attempting to reinvent himself as a pitcher. He’s pitched for clubs in the Puerto Rican Winter League and Dominican Winter League along the way after restarting his career as a 26-year-old in Class-A Advanced. He’ll now reap the benefits of that half-decade odyssey as he returns to the Major Leagues for what, in many ways, will be a second big league debut.
Wow! Good on Gose for battling back to the show.
Remarkable journey he’s taken. He’s the reverse of Rick Ankiel, though I’d think Gose’s journey would be more difficult given that pitchers often hit but position players never pitch.
Willians Astudillo has entered the chat…
Russel Martin
On a semi unrelated note how did Wallace end up in tor, after we traded him to oak for Holliday I didn’t really follow him until he was playing for hou. Basically until he wound up on a mlb roster I kinda forgot about him until he was playing for hou.
Agreed, but what was the exact reason for him giving up being a position player? He could easily be a P/CF for late inning defense and pinch running. Seems like right from the start he’s being underutilized.
And his journey is more like a successful version of Jeremy Barfield’s.
Despite his speed, he wasn’t stealing in the majors anywhere near as well as in the minors — but he certainly can be used as a pinch runner if needed, as pitchers occasionally are.
His defense though was startlingly bad for someone so fast, he actually had a negative dWAR for his career. I vaguely remember him making boneheaded plays. That’s a big part of why he couldn’t stick around as Jarrod Dyson type fringe player.
this story is low key awesome
A Gose by any other name
What a journey. I’ve been following Gose since he was playing in Low A Lakewood.
Someone help me out here please — does a team control a player until they have 6 years of service time *regardless* of calendar years? I’m surprised to read that Gose is still in that category.
Yes, unless otherwise contractually stipulated (which generally only happens with guys who are coming back from the KBO or NPB and have it written into their contracts that they’ll be free agents at the end of the deal).
Gose wouldn’t have a clause of that nature in his current contract, though. He’s under team control as long as he remains on the 40-man roster. If he’s outrighted off the 40-man, he can opt for free agency again.
There are exceptions to this, and Gose opted into this several years in a row by signing minor league deals. If you’re not on the 40 and you have more than 6 years of minor league experience you can opt to file for minor league free agency at the end of the year, and Gose could have left the Indians after 2019 or 2020 (he did this with Texas after 2018 and Detroit after 2017). He chose to stay with them, likely having some comfort with the instructional staff.
He’s back in the show because he hasn’t given up a run in about a month. While his stuff is overwhelming, his problem has been that he walks almost as many batters as he strikes out. Over the last month, though, he apparently has figured out how to find the strike zone so he has bee dominant.
It would be great if he could do the same thing in the majors.
Traditionally, pitchers at his age are already declining. I wonder if he can pitch further into his 30’s because he hasn’t had the wear on his arm that a traditional pitcher has had?
That’s a very good point, he certainly has a relatively fresher arm than most pitchers his age would.
Nolan Ryan credited his time away from baseball serving our country as the reason he was able to have a very long career.
@rj. It’s hard to believe Nolan Ryan never once won a CY Young. He was robbed in 1973 when he finished second to Jim Palmer while having double the strikeouts (383 to 158).
Then he himself is wrong, he always just had a one in a million arm. No one will ever be like him. He’s actually a really problematic character because old people view him as how all 100% of pitchers “should be” but Nolan Ryan was always a 1-of-1, totally-unique unicorn. We will never see a pitcher like him again, Verlander was close, but TJ came for him in the end, just like all mortal pitchers.
great story
What a career, huh?
You’ve got to love baseball.
I had to look it up to remember all of the details, but Gose got suspended and then demoted from AAA to AA by the Tigers in 2016 after he argued with and cursed at AAA manager Lloyd McClendon. I remember figuring that we probably weren’t going to see Gose in the bigs again after that. Good for him for turning things around, and props to the Tigers, Rangers and now Indians for seeing his potential and being patient with his position switch.
This is what makes baseball great, I cant think of any other sport that has a position change that is so significant it creates a whole new path to playing as a pro. Then Shohei comes to town and says I can do both!
Tim Tebow just tried to make an NFL comeback as a TE but failed miserably
Logan Thomas is an example of the QB to TE path that was successful.
Julian Edelman is another. College QB turned NFL slot WR
But these arent as vastly different like pitching and hitting are, this is more like going from kicker to wide receiver or something
What’s good for the Gose is good for the Guardians.
Or, what Gose around comes around.
What Gose up,
must take the mound.
I love this story, and good for the Indians to be giving him this chance. I’d been hoping for most of the year to see him up in the majors, but he’s been dominant recently and definitely earned it.
I’m pretty sure he would have been a minor league free agent after the year if he wasn’t added to the 40-man, so it’s basically a free look at him. But there’s also plenty of room for him to stick if he pitches well down the stretch. Hentges, Kyle Nelson, Francisco Perez, and Alex Young are the only other lefty relievers on the 40-man roster, and none of them have pitched well. So there’s definitely a spot for him if he looks good.
The Tigers put a speed gun on Gose when he was an outfielder and he threw in the nineties off a flat outfield, not the mound. He had (has?) some serious velo and it looks like he started hitting the plate lately. I’m going to take a peek at the game to see if he gets in…
Let’s not forget Jason Lane while we compare other players with similar stories. 26 HR’s in ’05 for the NL Champion Stros, made it back to pitch a couple of games for the Padres in ’14.
Another odd fact is that he was the 2nd position player in Astros history to throw left, but bat right. They now have had four players do this, with two on the team currently in McCormick and Meyers.
What a remarkable story! I wish him the best as he comes back as a pitcher. If he can keep his command he could be a dominant reliever for Cleveland. Best of luck Anthony!
Is there anyone who’s head of Anthony Gose’s story who isn’t inspired by and rooting for this guy?? Here’s hoping it turns out well for you, Anthony…you deserve it after all the hard work you’ve put in and intestinal fortitude you’ve shown!!!!!
Didn’t expect to be so offended by the words ‘Gose, now 31 years old’
He comes and Gose…
There Gose the neighborhood…
And so it GOSE !!
Being a Jays fan, I have followed Gose for his entire career when he started as an outfielder. Elite tools for an outfielder but couldn’t put it all together. I hope he can stick as a pitcher. Great story.
Its amazing how none of the players the Phillies gave up for Oswalt did anything for the Astros. Sure Happ and Villar have had nice careers but that was mostly after Houston. Houston couldn’t even hit on the guy Gose was traded for as Wallace was a bust as well. Ruben Amaro Jr. may have loved big money contract extensions a little too much but he could definitely fleece a team in a trade
Good story. I’ll be rooting for him to carve out a career in the majors even if it only lasts a couple of seasons. Dedication does matter
And if they ever need a pinch runner or want to replace an OF defensively… they can call him in from the bullpen.
He could absolutely fly when he was with the Jays.
This is a great story.
Of course this will be his only year playing for the Indians
Veteran managers know how to utilize a player with these talents. He better wear an “oven mitt” when pinch running!
The Gose is loose!!
Imagine making it to the big leagues, struggling, and climbing the ranks all over again doing something completely different. This man followed his dreams and achieved it without the comforts of having a nest egg. Gose is a true inspiration.
I remember hearing a lot of Blue Jay fans claiming he was gonna be the centerpiece of an RA Dickey trade back in 2012. Then they gave up d’Arnaud and Syndergaard.
Gose is having a better year than Syndergaard.
Gg buddy
Two seasons with 70 stolen bases. Wow.
If anything Gose should become a FA and market himself as a two-way RP/CF who can pinch run for you every single game in the late innings. He’d probably get a bigger bag than being a slightly-wild flamethrowing RP.
Great story! Rooting for AG.
Have to believe there’s more guys who could make this switch with some time. 2 way players in HS or college who had to choose a path, but had the skill set/athleticism to do both.
People laugh when we compare Gose to Ohtani, but its an actual-fact that Gose plays a far superior CF than Ohtani does! So he does one thing better!
Considering that Ohtani has only played 17 career innings of defense, I’ll give that to Gose.
Gose was below replacement level in center field and was getting worse, so no, I’m quite sure Ohtani can do a lot better.
Has anyone checked in with Maverick, Iceman or Merlin to get their take?
I was just commenting on the Nick Ramirez page how interesting it is for former position players to make it back so quick as pitchers. The Gose has walked a boat load. Future coach.
It would be great to have him and Clase along with a reborn Karinchack for next year. WOW .And thats not counting other pieces that we have and can still get. I just hope we don’t go giving away more Jesus Aguilar’s,Naquin’s,Urshella’s,Santander’s,Haase’s and many more and not get even the middle of a donut for them.
Gose pitched quite well in his limited duty. Not sure if he’ll be in their 2022 plans and if he can expect the same success, but just getting back to that level again must’ve been quite a feeling for him in his new role.