The Royals have purchased the contract of right-hander John Gant from the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks, according to a report from Robert Murray of Fansided. Gant will report to club’s Triple-A affiliate in Omaha.
It’s an exciting turn of events of Gant, who last pitched in the majors back in 2021 and hasn’t pitched much since. A 21st-round pick by the Mets all the way back in 2011, Gant was traded twice before he fully established himself in the majors: once from New York to Atlanta in the 2015 Juan Uribe trade, and a second time from Atlanta to St. Louis prior to the 2017 season in exchange for Jaime García. In between those two deals, Gant made his big league debut and pitched to a 4.86 ERA with a 4.39 FIP in a 50-inning cup of coffee with the Braves during the 2016 season.
The majority of Gant’s time in the majors came as a member of the Cardinals, however. The right-hander made just seven appearances with the club in 2017 but was a fixture of the club’s pitching staff as soon as the 2018 season, when he posted a 3.47 ERA (112 ERA+) in 114 innings of work spread across 19 starts and seven relief outings. His 4.07 FIP and pedestrian 19.5% strikeout rate both stood out as potential red flags about his abilities in that role, however, and so the Cardinals moved him to the bullpen full time ahead of the 2019 campaign. Gant spent two years as a full-time reliever for the Cards, and pitched quite well in that time with a 3.43 ERA (123 ERA+) and a matching 3.44 FIP thanks to a more robust 23.6% strikeout rate.
That strong performance in relief was enough to earn Gant another crack at starting in 2021, and it went fairly well early in the season. On June 1 of that year, Gant pitched six scoreless frames to lower his ERA to 1.60 on the year through 50 2/3 innings of work. That impressive figure was belied by a 4.02 FIP, but even replicating that figure the rest of the way would have been enough to make Gant a solid mid-rotation arm. Unfortunately, Gant was torched for 18 runs across 14 innings in his final four starts of the year for the Cardinals before moving back to the bullpen. With a 1.54 ERA (albeit one that was once again paired with a lackluster FIP of 4.71) in 11 relief appearances, Gant’s value was able to recover enough that the Cardinals swapped him to the Twins for veteran southpaw J.A. Happ at the trade deadline.
Gant pitched decently in seven relief outings for Minnesota but floundered once moved back into the rotation for the stretch run, surrendering a 6.12 ERA in 25 innings of work across seven starts in August and September. The Twins decided to cut bait on the righty after the 2021 season, and he elected free agency after clearing outright waivers that November. Once he became a free agent, he signed with the NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters to play in Japan during the 2022 season. Unfortunately, he was largely sidelined for the 2022-24 seasons, making just three appearances for the Fighters in 2023 and missing the other two seasons in that window entirely.
He’s re-emerged with the Ducks in 2025, however, and in his age-32 campaign he’s looked dominant with a 1.71 ERA across four starts while striking out 35.5% of opponents. Independent league play is obviously a far cry from the majors, but that level of dominance was still enough to get the attention of a Royals club in need of some extra starting pitching depth after losing Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans to the injured list this weekend.