A's Trevor Gott Has an Interesting Contract Wrinkle

Trevor Gott Signed on with the A's, but he also has interesting incentives built into his contract

The A's signed relief pitcher Trevor Gott to a one year deal over the weekend, and the team made the official announcement yesterday. Ken Rosenthal reported the contract details, which involve an interesting wrinkle. 

Per Rosenthal on Twitter, "Free-agent reliever Trevor Gott’s deal with A’s, per source: One year, $1.5M guaranteed, with the chance to earn a $50K bonus for 45 appearances and another $50K for 50 appearances. Also will receive $100K if traded."

The $50K bonus for 45 appearances seems achievable, but the A's only had two players reach that mark out of the 'pen last season. One was Lucas Erceg, who was acquired via trade during the year, and the other was closer Trevor May, who missed a month early in the season and also didn't have many save opportunities in a 112 loss season. Sam Moll finished with 44 appearances before being traded to the Cincinnati Reds at the trade deadline.

Part of the reasoning for the lack of appearances out of the bullpen for Oakland is because the entire pitching staff was constantly rotating to either find someone that was effective or fresh. 

Gott is banking on himself in a couple of ways here. One is that he'll be effective enough to be used often, potentially earning $100K through appearance fees. The second is that he'll also pitch well enough to become an attractive trade target over the course of the season, which could land him $100K and a trip to a team with postseason aspirations.

The right-hander holds a career 4.30 ERA in both the first and second half of seasons, but his strikeout and walk rates have both been higher in the second half, while he's also had about a 60 point difference in OPS between the two halves, posting a .658 in the first and a .721 in the second. 

While this is a pretty low-stakes deal for the A's, taking a small bet on a reliever that has been consistently league average for a small sum of money, it also shows what a challenge it may be for GM David Forst to convince players to come play in Oakland for 2024.

There were reports around the Winter Meetings that the team had been having trouble signing players to multi-year deals due to a lack of knowledge on where the team will play from 2025-27, but this one year agreement seemingly took some coaxing too. 

With the market moving fairly slowly this off-season, we'll likely see the A's wait until January or February before they make any other free agent signings, when players will be a little more receptive to their offers. 

If more free agents want to add special wrinkles into their contracts to play for the A's, then maybe the front office will begin to look to build via trades instead. As we wrote about earlier this week, Forst and company are in a unique position this winter, where nobody is really going to care what moves they make. The fan base in Oakland isn't going to get invested, and any fans they hope to make in Las Vegas aren't paying close attention yet. 

Trades may be the way to go the rest of the off-season.