San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Garrett finding niche as ‘Draymond Green’ of the bullpen
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The comps for Amir Garrett are not the norm for a left-handed reliever. Garrett throws a lot of sliders, but Scott Alexander isn’t the first name on people’s minds when they discuss the San Francisco Giants roster hopeful.
“Draymond Green,” Garrett’s former St. John’s basketball coach, Steve Lavin, said Friday. “Amir brought that same tenacity and hard edge, played with a chip on his shoulder and was a versatile player who could influence games at both ends of the floor.”
Golden State Warriors guard Gary Payton II, Garrett’s friend since childhood, nearly made a whopper of a comparison before dialing it back some. “He was just like a smooth … I don’t want to say Kevin (Durant), but he was a big, athletic (combo forward). Strong. Skilled.”
Garrett, 31, pulled off the astonishing feat of playing minor-league baseball and Division I sports simultaneously, like John Elway (Yankees, Stanford quarterback), Danny Ainge (Blue Jays, BYU basketball) and Deion Sanders (Yankees, Florida State). It’s much less common these days, and it was not easy — Garrett recalled spending 12hour minor-league bus rides studying for his classes at St. John’s after signing a $1 million deal with the Reds as a 22nd-round pick.
Garrett was part of the nation’s second-ranked recruiting class during Lavin’s first year at St. John’s. He averaged 6.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game in two seasons before transferring to Cal State Northridge and shortly thereafter deciding to focus solely on baseball.
“Juggling basketball and baseball was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life by far,” said Garrett, who plans to be a basketball coach when he’s done playing baseball. “It was something I wanted to do, something the Reds allowed me to do, and I’m forever indebted to them. And then it got to a point it was like, ‘You’re not going to be able to do both, you know? ’ And I was like, ‘All right, well, I choose baseball.’ And once I put basketball down, I got to the big leagues really fast.”
Lavin said Garrett might have been an NBA-level player had he elected to play basketball full-time at 18; three other members of his St. John’s recruiting class did play in the NBA. “I think Amir would have thrived,” Lavin said. “You don’t know, there’s no crystal ball, but he might have played overseas or in the NBA or both and had an 11-, 12-year career.”
Garrett is about the same height as Green, listed as 6-foot-6 while in college and a shade under now. He was a physical defender, and intense, and, Lavin said, “He could rebound and blast it downcourt, and he loved to drive and attack the rim.”
Garrett also could get himself in a little trouble, Draymond-style, with some altercations against Notre Dame and Georgetown, and he was front and center in a wild brawl between the Reds and Pirates in 2019 after he heard someone yell something offensive at him from the dugout.
“The guys who know know I don’t take any [expletive],” Garrett said. “I’ll never get mad at a player for expressing who they are on the field, I have no problem with bat flips, but if a guy comes up and kicks dirt at my catcher or whatever, that’s a no-go for me. I’m not OK with people blatantly disrespecting you; we can’t just lay down on that. I will back everyone in here, even against friends and former teammates. If I’m on your side, I’m on your side.”
Along with that intensity, the Giants are also getting experience and a slider so nasty that Garrett says he has had no problem throwing it nine times in a row. He’s not afraid to change grips — he has learned a new one from Cy Young winner Robbie Ray this spring — and he’s got such feel for the pitch, he can make it more like a cutter or more of a sweeping pitch.
And yet, at one point in the minors, Garrett “could not throw a breaking ball to save my life,” he said.
Tony Fossas, a longtime bigleague pitcher, was Garrett’s pitching coach at Billings, Mont., in 2012, and he took one look at the tall youngster throwing over the top and immediately suggested he start throwing sidearm so he could land some strikes with his breaking stuff. Garrett’s arm angle settled more three-quarters and his slider immediately turned into a weapon.
Fossas said Garrett “didn’t even know what a slider was, he just came in throwing,” but once he adjusted his arm angle, suddenly the Reds had “a 6-foot-6 guy throwing mid-90s. He was just devastating against left-handers, and he’s the most competitive person I’ve ever coached.”
“I credit that pitch and Tony as a coach for getting me to the big leagues,” Garrett said.
Giants pitching coach Bryan Price was Garrett’s manager in Cincinnati when Garrett came up in 2017. Five of his first six starts were strong, but he struggled in June and was sent down. By the end of the season, he was in the bullpen.
“One of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had was when we sent him down,” Price said. “He was really our best pitcher for the first five weeks of the season and we made a Herculean gaffe by sending him down to the minor leagues.”
Garrett responded with his usual drive and the next season, he was lights out the first half of the year out of the bullpen, posting a 1.93 ERA through June 5, and in 2019 and ’20 he was one of the league’s best relievers before bouncing around from Kansas City to Cleveland. Now, Garrett is vying for the second lefty spot in the bullpen in San Francisco, reunited with Price.
“It’s been so fun to watch his development,” Price said, “He’s accountable, he has a tremendous sense of responsibility and he is a really great combination of athleteintellectual-perfectionist in a good way. He holds himself to a very high standard. The way he carries himself, the way he prepares, you find that with guys who were very high level two-sport athletes.”
The past few years have brought more calm and perspective into Garrett’s life, though. He and his wife, Tausana, are parents to a 21⁄2-year-old girl, Koa Mae, who is Garrett’s primary focus.
Garrett has not been a non-roster invitee with a new team before, and he is approaching it as intently as you’d expect.
“I’m very confident that I will make this team,” he said. “That’s just my mindset. This is the first time in my career I’ve ever had to deal with something like this. But I’m going to work hard and trust my process, pound the strike zone and try to make our team win.”