and I go back to when we were in high school. Crawford, who had taken a liking to them after getting two hits on April 30 and then two more the next day. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win.”īefore he left Seattle, Nottingham left a few of his bats with Mariners shortstop J.P. You just had to laugh it off a little bit. “It was only weird because I had only been in Seattle two days and now I’m going back to the team that DFA’d me. It even made him chuckle because it seemed so ridiculous. “There’s been a change of plans,” said Dipoto, who traded Nottingham back to the Brewers for cash. “When I got to the field (T-Mobile Park) on Saturday, I got the call that I was getting DFA’d again … and that I had been traded back to the Brewers,” he said. The Brewers promoted Mario Feliciano to back up Pina, but Feliciano was just a short-term fix, having had only caught 14 games above A-ball. That same night, hundreds of miles away, Narváez had to leave the Brewers game against the Angles with a strained left hamstring. “I didn’t play, but caught a couple of bullpens,” said Nottingham, who spent the day meeting his new teammates and coaches and, generally, getting settled in. The next day, Nottingham was activated and in uniform as the Mariners took on the Angels. When the Mariners won the waiver claim, Nottingham hopped on a plane for Seattle, where he arrived on April 29. “He has got receiving skills, has power and is relatively young (26). “We have always liked him, as potentially a power-oriented part of a catcher platoon, or a backup,” said Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto. The Mariners, looking to add some catcher depth at the major-league level, opted to put in a waiver claim on Nottingham, who had been on their radar for a while. This was the first move in this unlikely chain of events that saw him crisscross the country as he attempted to find a home - for more than two days, at least. On April 22 he was reinstated only to be designated for assignment when the team opted to go with Manny Piña as the backup to Omar Narváez. Nottingham’s wild month began in Milwaukee, where he started the season on the injured list after recovering from offseason thumb surgery. Once you’re able to put that aside, the better off you are,” Nottingham said. “You can’t just let that (getting designated) get you down, because while it didn’t work out for you with one organization, it doesn’t mean your tools aren’t attractive to someone else. Get all that? The list of Nottingham’s transactions spells it all out neatly and cleanly, but it’s the story behind the transactions that make his story so compelling. No one knows this better than Nottingham, who over a dizzying three-week span recently was a Brewer, a Mariner and a Brewer again before returning for yet another stint with the Mariners. “… Because you never really know what can happen.” 184/.277/.421 hitter.“I’m going to tell him that all you can really do is come to the field happy each day,” Nottingham said. Punchouts have also been a problem in his limited MLB looks, as he has ended up on strikes in 38.5% of his 130 big league appearances. 250/.330/.412 hitter in parts of nine minor league seasons, showing decent strength and patience but batting at a 25.6% clip. The 27-year-old has displayed a similar profile throughout his career. He connected on 15 home runs while walking at a robust 10.5% clip but hit on an elevated 27.7% of his trips. Nottingham spent the entire 2022 season with the O’s top affiliate in Norfolk, where he scored. He spent the remainder of this season in Triple-A and struck a minor league deal with the Orioles last winter. He vacated that period and hasn’t played in the majors since. Nottingham found himself on the wire again in early June 2021 after being designated for deployment by the Mariners. In some cases, the series of transactions even suggested an amendment to the latest collective agreement Now teams will move down on a player if they’ve already claimed that player once this season. He went to Seattle with waivers from Milwaukee, was bought back for cash by the brew crew a week and a half later, and ended up back in Seattle with waivers a few weeks later. Within a month at the start of this season, Nottingham jogged back and forth between the two clubs. That led to a switch between the Milwaukee and Seattle teams, who both valued him as a deep catcher. Nottingham exhausted his minor league option years through 2021, requiring teams to keep him on the MLB roster or make him available to other organizations. He spent most of his time as a member of the Brewers, working as a bat-first deep catcher in his early seasons. Nottingham played in the majors every season from 2018-21. The right-hander also spent part of the 2021 campaign in Seattle. The Mariners sign catchers Jacob Nottingham to a minor-league contract, according to his MLB.com transaction tracker.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |