Nottingham is a true journeyman, having spent time in seven different MLB organizations throughout a professional career that spans more than a decade. He was drafted by the Astros, who traded him to the Athletics two years later as part of a package for starter Scott Kazmir. The following offseason, the A’s flipped him to the Brewers as part of the return for slugger Khris Davis.

It was with Milwaukee that Nottingham made his MLB debut. He played a handful of games for the Brewers every year between 2018-21, producing a respectable .770 OPS and 103 wRC+ in 99 trips to the plate. His seven home runs and .273 isolated power were particularly impressive, especially for a catcher. On the other side of the ball, he appeared in 36 games behind the dish, compiling 2 Defensive Runs Saved and a +2 Fielding Run Value. Despite the tiny sample size, those defensive numbers were encouraging. Nottingham was always considered a bat-first catching prospect with serious questions about his defense behind the dish.

The backstop became a Mariner in April 2021, although his first stint with the club was short-lived. Seattle claimed Nottingham off of waivers on April 28 only to designate him for assignment and trade him back to Milwaukee on May 2. However, the M’s claimed him again a couple of weeks later, and this time, he stuck around in the organization for the rest of the season. He appeared in 10 games with the Mariners, though he only appeared as a first baseman, designated hitter, and pinch hitter – never as a catcher. Unfortunately, Nottingham performed poorly, going 3-for-26 with 12 strikeouts. He spent most of the rest of the 2021 season on the injured list at Triple-A.

Nottingham has not made it back to the majors since 2021. From 2022-23, he played in the minors with the Orioles, Mariners, Giants, and Nationals, putting up a .745 OPS and a 91 wRC+. He then spent the 2024 campaign playing in the Mexican League. He will now return to affiliated ball, re-joining an organization that clearly likes what he brings to the table. In his age-30 season, Nottingham can provide catching depth for Seattle behind Cal Raleigh, Mitch Garver, Nick Raposo, and top prospect Harry Ford. The Mariners are known to be seeking a right-handed bat this winter, and Nottingham offers depth in that area as well.

After hitting 92 homers with a .260/.325/.503 slash line over 1540 plate appearances with San Diego and Cleveland from 2018-21, Reyes’ production has sharply cratered over the last two seasons.  He struggled so much in the first half of the 2022 season that the Guardians designated him for assignment in early August, and Reyes then went to the Cubs on a waiver claim.  Chicago opted to outright Reyes off their roster after the season rather than pay a projected $6MM arbitration salary, and Reyes then landed in Kansas City on a minor league deal.

Reyes hit only .186/.231/.288 over 65 PA with the Royals, who then DFA’ed him in May, and Reyes opted to again become a free agent.  Signing with the Nationals organization didn’t provide any new spark, as Reyes hit .219/.322/.383 over 149 in Rochester, electing to stay with the team despite a pair of earlier opt-out dates.

Despite all his struggles over the last two seasons, it still seems likely that the 28-year-old Reyes will catch on with another team eager to see if his power bat can be revived.  The next chance might not come until 2024, however, if clubs prefer to give their younger players more playing time over the last few weeks of the Triple-A season and postseason.

Nottingham’s MLB resume consists of 53 games with the Brewers and Mariners from 2018-21, and the catcher has yet to return to the big leagues.  He spent 2022 in the Orioles’ farm system and then returned to the Mariners on another minor league contract during the offseason, before getting traded to the Giants in May and released in late June.  Nottingham provided Washington with some catching depth at the Triple-A level, but the Nationals will now make room for prospect Brady Lindsly, who was just promoted to Rochester on Friday.

Nottingham just hit the open market last week. He was released from a non-roster pact with the Giants. The right-handed hitter had posted a .232/.329/.432 line over 34 contests for San Francisco’s Triple-A club. That’s right in line with the .229/.333/.425 slash he’d put up through 89 minor league games last season, which he spent in the Orioles’ organization.

A former sixth-round draftee, Nottingham was once a fairly well-regarded prospect and has appeared in parts of four big league seasons. He got to the highest level each year from 2018-21, splitting his time between the Brewers and Mariners. Working primarily in a depth capacity, he appeared in 53 games and hit .184/.277/.421. He connected on eight home runs in only 130 trips to the plate but struck out over 34% of the time.

Prospect evaluators generally credited Nottingham with above-average to plus raw power but raised concerns about his strikeout tallies and receiving skills. He’ll head to Triple-A Rochester as a non-roster depth option with some power potential.

The Nats have used Keibert Ruiz and Riley Adams as the catching duo this year. Nottingham won’t jump either player on the depth chart, but the only other catcher on the 40-man roster (Israel Pineda) in on the injured list. Luis Torrens had been in Rochester but opted out of his contract with the Nats over the weekend; Nottingham will step into that role.

Nottingham, 28, posted a .262/.360/.415 batting line in 75 plate appearances for Sacramento. He’d opened the year with the Mariners organization but struggled to a .200/.294/.450 slash in 68 plate appearances with their top affiliate. Overall, the well-traveled backstop/first baseman is batting .232/.329/.432 in 143 Triple-A plate appearances this season. Those numbers are nearly identical to his career line in 1025 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

Nottingham hasn’t seen big league action since 2021, when he was hot-potato’ed between the Brewers and Mariners several times throughout the season’s first couple months. The right-handed-hitting slugger has displayed promising power in the Majors, clubbing eight homers and connecting on three doubles in just 130 plate appearances, but he’s also fanned in 38.5% of his plate appearances at the big league level. Overall, he’s a .184/.277/.421 hitter in the Majors.

Defensively, Nottingham has a 31% caught-stealing rate in the minors, although he’s just 4-for-30 so far  in 2023 (13%). He’s long drawn positive scouting grades for his big arm behind the dish, though the other aspects of his defense (blocking, receiving, framing) were typically considered to be a work in progress. In Baseball America’s 2019 scouting report on Nottingham, they noted that he’d improved his glovework to at least be passable in those areas.

Nottingham will head back to the market in search of a third organization this season. Teams are regularly in search of catching help, and Nottingham has more than 600 professional innings at first base as well, which could add to his appeal back in free agency.

Nottingham, 28, was signed by the Mariners to a minor league deal in the offseason. He’s played 17 games for Triple-A Tacoma this year, hitting .200/.294/.450 in that time. He has 53 games of major league experience, spread across the 2018-2021 seasons with the Brewers and Mariners. He hit .184/.277/.421 in 130 plate appearances in those major league contests. Last year, he was with the Orioles on a minor league deal and hit .229/.333/.425 in Triple-A but never got the call to the big leagues. Defensively, he has a tally of +2 Defensive Runs Saved in his brief time in the majors while FanGraphs ranks his framing as just a bit below league average.

The Giants have been shuffling through catchers this year, as they opened the season with Joey Bart, Roberto Pérez and Rule 5 pick Blake Sabol on the roster, the latter of whom also plays some outfield. Unfortunately, Pérez required season-ending shoulder surgery fairly early in the season and Bart has now joined him on the injured list with a groin strain. That leaves them with Sabol and the recently-promoted Patrick Bailey as their duo behind the plate, both of whom are in their first major league seasons. The addition of Nottingham will give the club a veteran depth option to call upon if needed.

Nottingham played in the majors each season from 2018-21. He spent most of that time as a member of the Brewers, working as a bat-first depth catcher for his first few seasons. Nottingham exhausted his minor league option years by 2021, requiring teams to keep him on the MLB roster or make him available to other organizations. That led to a shuffle between Milwaukee and Seattle teams that each valued him as a depth catcher.

Within a one-month span early in that season, Nottingham yo-yoed between the two clubs. He went from Milwaukee to Seattle on waivers, was reacquired by the Brew Crew for cash a week and a half later, then landed back in Seattle on waivers a couple weeks thereafter. The series of transactions even partially inspired a change in the newest collective bargaining agreement; now, teams move to the back of the waiver priority on a player if they’ve already claimed him once before in that season.

Nottingham again found himself on the wire in early June 2021 after being designated for assignment by the Mariners. He cleared that time around and hasn’t played in the majors since then. He spent the remainder of that season in Triple-A and inked a minor league deal with the Orioles last winter. Nottingham spent the entire 2022 season with the O’s top affiliate in Norfolk, where he hit .229/.333/.425 through 354 plate appearances. He connected on 15 home runs while walking at a robust 10.5% clip but struck out in an elevated 27.7% of his trips.

The 27-year-old has shown a similar profile throughout his entire career. He’s a .250/.330/.412 hitter in parts of nine minor league seasons, showing decent power and patience but striking out at a 25.6% clip. Punchouts have also been a problem in his limited MLB looks, as he’s gone down on strikes in 38.5% of his 130 big league plate appearances. He’s a .184/.277/.421 hitter at the highest level.

Seattle has the duo of Cal Raleigh and Tom Murphy to serve as their catchers this year. Nottingham adds some upper level depth who won’t require an immediate 40-man roster spot, presumably heading to Triple-A Tacoma to open the season.

This is a small change that could potentially have significant ramifications. Under the previous CBA, arbitration contracts were not fully guaranteed until Opening Day, with players cut during Spring Training only earning a portion of the agreed-upon salary. If a team released a player more than 15 days prior to Opening Day, they only had to pay the player 30 days’ salary as termination pay. If the player was released less than 15 days before Opening Day, they would get 45 days’ pay.

This makes for an interesting tradeoff. On the one hand, this could be viewed as a gain for the players, as they now have access to greater security, knowing that the salary they accept will be locked in once they agree to it. But this also gives them incentive to accept terms without the hearing, perhaps leading to them accepting lower terms than they otherwise would have earned, thus benefiting the teams. It is well established that teams put a high priority on stifling salaries as much as possible. In 2019, it was revealed that MLB holds an annual symposium where the team that best succeeds at opposing the players in arbitration is awarded a wrestling-style championship belt, something that surely didn’t help with the animosity that’s lingered between the players and the league since the signing of the last CBA. This wrinkle in the new CBA could help the teams further those goals, but at least could give some borderline non-tender candidates the silver lining of greater financial security.

Elsewhere in the CBA, Jayson Stark of The Athletic provides an interesting nugget on Twitter. “If a team has already claimed a player once on waivers that season, it can’t claim him again until every other team has passed.” Stark aptly refers to this as the “Jacob Nottingham Rule,” in reference to the fact that Nottingham was the centerpiece of a game of hot potato between the Brewers and Mariners last year. Beginning the season with the Brewers, the catcher was put on waivers in April, claimed by the Mariners, who put him back on waivers on May. The Brewers brought him back on a waiver claim, only to send him back onto the waiver wire two weeks later. On May 2oth, Seattle claimed him again, before putting him back on the wire in early June, when he finally cleared. Waiver claim priority generally goes in reverse order of the current standings. (For the first 31 days of the season, the standings of the previous season are used.) In the case of Nottingham, there would have been some teams that never even had the ability to make a claim on him for most of that sequence last year, as he would have been scooped up before their turn. Going forward, they will have a greater chance to interrupt such a unique back-and-forth as occurred with Nottingham last year.

In a detailed column about the CBA, Stark adds some details about the schedule changes that will begin in 2023. While it had been previously reported that teams would play all 29 of the other squads in the league each year, with the number of divisional games being reduced, the details were not known at the time. Stark lays out the format that will begin next year, with each team playing its divisional rivals 14 times per season, down from 19, for a total of 56. Teams in the same league but not the same division will be played six times each, a total of 60. When it comes to interleague play, each team has a “rival” that they will play four times, with three games against the other 14 teams in the opposite league. That amounts to 46 total interleague games. All of those categories are evenly split between road and home, except for the final one. In the case of the 14 non-rival teams that are in the opposite league, the home team for the three-game series will alternate from year to year.

Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com has a couple of other details in his rundown of the CBA. In terms of PEDs, he says, “There will be an increase in the number of in-season urine tests for performance-enhancing substances and drugs of abuse, as well as adjustments to the scheduling of these tests to make them less predictable.” He then adds that, “the program will now utilize dried-blood spot-testing rather than venous blood draws for hGH testing, making Major League Baseball the first professional sport drug testing program to adopt this new technology.”

Finally, while the increase in the minimum salary for MLB players was reported throughout the negotiations, there is also a bump for some players in the minors. From Kubatko: “The minor league minimum salary for players signing a second major league contract or with prior big league service will increase from $93,000 in 2021 to $114,100 in 2022, $117,400 in 2023, $120,600 in 2024, $123,900 in 2025 and $127,100 in 2026.”

Although it’s a minor league deal, it’s noteworthy for the Orioles given their catching situation. They don’t currently have any catchers on their 40-man roster. In 2021, most of the time behind the dish went to Pedro Severino, who was outrighted at the end of the season and has since signed with the Brewers. Chance Sisco got some playing time in the first half of the year but was claimed on waivers by the Mets in June. Austin Wynns and Nick Ciuffo, who were also in the mix, were both outrighted off the roster at the end of the season.

The club has the consensus top prospect in baseball, Adley Rutschman, set to debut at some point in 2022 after he finished this year in Triple-A. However, they will need some other catching options on hand to cover the position until his call-up, or to act as backup to Rutschman later in the year. That means Nottingham has a decent path to some playing time in the big leagues next year.

Nottingham, 26, was selected by the Astros in the sixth round of the 2013 draft. In 2015, he was shipped to the Athletics as part of the trade that sent Scott Kazmir to Houston. A few months later, Oakland sent him to Milwaukee as part of the Khris Davis deal. He made his MLB debut in 2018 and spent three years as a frequently-optioned depth catcher, appearing in 38 total games over the 2018-2020 campaigns.

2021 saw Nottingham be the centerpiece of a game of hot potato between the Brewers and Mariners. Having exhausted his option years, he was designated for assignment by the Brewers in April. He was claimed by the Mariners and then designated for assignment again a few days later. Seattle traded him back to Milwaukee, who designated him yet again after less than two weeks. He was claimed by the Mariners a second time and then, just over week later, designated yet again. In the middle of June, he finally cleared waivers and was outrighted.

Over the past four seasons, Nottingham has only gotten into 53 games at the big league level, hitting eight home runs and slashing .184/.277/.421 in that time, with a strikeout rate of 38.5%. In 2021, amidst all that traveling, he got 45 plate appearances over 15 games. He hit three homers and slashed .150/.222/.400, with a strikeout rate of 44.4% in that tiny sample size.

• The Mariners announced a slew of roster moves ahead of today’s game. Dylan Moore has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list, and Yohan Ramirez has been recalled from Triple-A. On the way out, Dillon Thomas and Donovan Walton were optioned to Triple-A Tacoma. Catcher Jacob Nottingham has also been outrighted to Triple-A.
• Tigers infielder Jeimer Candelario has been reinstated from the bereavement list, per the team. He has been placed on the injured list as he goes through intake protocols. Candelario has been out since June 6th. He has batted .266/.336/.381 in 241 plate appearances this season.

It’s the latest in a staggering series of transactions for Nottingham, who has spent the past several seasons with the Brewers organization and recently begun to be ping-ponged back and forth between Seattle and Milwaukee. A quick rundown of Nottingham’s bizarre timeline leading up to today’s DFA:

• April 22: Brewers designate Nottingham for assignment
• April 28: Mariners claim Nottingham of waivers
• May 1: Mariners designate Nottingham for assignment
• May 2: Brewers reacquire Nottingham in exchange for cash
• May 20: Mariners re-claim Nottingham off waivers

It remains to be seen if the Brewers will take another run at Nottingham, if he’ll land with another club or, perhaps, if he might finally clear waivers. The Mariners will have a week to gauge trade interest in the catcher or once again attempt to pass him through outright waivers. He’s out of minor league options, so any team that claims or acquires Nottingham will have to carry him on its MLB roster.

On the one hand, Nottingham is surely grateful to be in demand by at least these two teams. He gets Major League service time and Major League pay for any time spent in DFA limbo, so he’s at least being well compensated for the increasingly ridiculous tug-of-war the two teams are playing over him. On the other hand, it’s difficult for any player to bounce back and forth this much. Family considerations, housing, Covid protocols and myriad other factors come into play every time he changes teams.

Nottingham was once a catching prospect of some note, although he’s yet to receive any sort of regular playing time in the Majors. (Clearly, this year’s sequence isn’t helping.) He’s a career .250/.326/.421 hitter in 528 Triple-A plate appearances but has managed a more tepid .184/.277/.421 slash in a small sample of 130 plate appearances in the Majors. He homered twice in his 2021 debut with the Brewers and has also connected on a long ball in Seattle, but Nottingham’s 45 plate appearances in this strange season have resulted in a .150/.222/.400 output.

It’s familiar territory for Nottingham. He played for Milwaukee from 2018-21, but the Brewers designated him for assignment last month. Seattle claimed Nottingham off waivers but designated him for assignment themselves just four days later without giving him an opportunity to get into a game. In the interim, the Brewers lost starting catcher Omar Narváez to injury, so Milwaukee quickly acquired Nottingham back for cash considerations. Now, with Narváez healthy, Nottingham found himself squeezed off the roster yet again.

Having acquired Nottingham twice in less than a month, the Seattle front office clearly has some affinity for the 26-year-old. The right-handed hitter was a decently-regarded prospect on the strength of his raw power, and he’s shown flashes of it over his first 99 MLB plate appearances, hitting .205/.293/.477 with seven homers. However, he comes with some question marks about his receiving aptitude and has struck out quite a bit at nearly every level of his pro career, including at a 38.4% clip in his brief major league time.

Nottingham is out of minor league option years, which has surely driven his recent roster shuffle. The Mariners must keep him on the MLB roster this time around or again risk losing him to another club. Optioning Torrens could suggest Seattle’s prepared to give Nottingham some run.

Acquired from the Padres as part of last summer’s Austin Nola trade, Torrens showed some offensive promise down the stretch last season. He’s gotten off to a terrible start to 2021, though, hitting .178/.219/.300 over 96 plate appearances. Torrens has also had a rough go defensively. He’s thrown out just two of 21 attempted base stealers, rated as a below-average pitch framer (per Statcast) and been behind the plate for a lofty 14 wild pitches in just 190 2/3 innings (although, to his credit, he hasn’t been charged with a passed ball). The Mariners surely hope Torrens can regain his footing on both sides of the ball in Tacoma.

Godoy began his pro career with the Cardinals organization. He spent the 2012-20 seasons in the St. Louis system, topping out at Triple-A. Godoy was at the Cards alternate training site last summer and elected minor league free agency at the end of the year. He signed a minors pact with Seattle over the winter and earned his first big league promotion with a strong start for Tacoma. All told, the 26-year-old carries a .315/.370/.481 line in 119 career Triple-A plate appearances and has hit .255/.339/.391 in parts of three seasons at Double-A.

Like Godoy, Marmolejos joined the Mariners via minor league free agency, doing so during the 2019-20 offseason. He’s picked up 209 MLB plate appearances over the past two seasons, although he didn’t do much at the plate. Marmolejos has hit just .177/.263/.355 and struck out in an alarming 30.6% of his plate appearances. Lail signed a minors pact over the winter and was selected to the MLB roster three days ago. He’s since pitched a pair of innings out of the bullpen, allowing three runs on four hits.

Nottingham has been placed on the Brewers’ active roster. He’ll make his season debut today against the Dodgers. Mario Feliciano, meanwhile, has been optioned back to Triple-A after little more than a day on the active roster, per Will Sammon of the Athletic (via Twitter). Feliciano walked and scored a run in his debut yesterday.

As for the Mariners, they pick up a little bit of cash for the honor of holding Nottingham’s rights for a couple of days. Seattle DFA’ed Nottingham themselves yesterday, so there’s little reason not to send Nottingham back to Milwaukee.

It’s the second DFA in a little over a week for Nottingham, who was only just claimed by Seattle off the Brewers’ roster on April 28.  Nottingham might now be moving on without ever officially appearing in a Mariners uniform if another team makes a claim.  (Given how Milwaukee just lost starting catcher Omar Narvaez to the injured list, one wonders if the Brewers could reunite with their former backstop.)  Nottingham is out of minor league options, which is why neither the Mariners or Brewers could simply stash him in the minors.

The 26-year-old Nottingham has a .203/.306/.432 slash line over 85 career plate appearances in the majors, appearing in 30 games total with Milwaukee from 2018-20.  A sixth-round pick for the Astros in the 2013 draft, Nottingham played in the minors with the Astros and Athletics before going to the Brewers as part of the Khris Davis trade in February 2016.

Mills was a third-round pick for Seattle in the 2017 draft, and is a local product who hails from Spokane and attended Gonzaga.  MLB Pipeline ranks him as the 22nd-best prospect in the Mariners’ farm system, with Mills showing some extra intrigue after displaying a velocity bump (up to 97mph) in Arizona Fall League play.  Mills has “primarily relied on a fastball-slider combination to miss bats and generate a ton of groundouts,” according to Pipeline, with “high spin rates” on both pitches.  Mills has a 3.57 ERA over 126 minor league innings, all as a relief pitcher.

Nottingham, whom the Brewers designated last week, will now join his fourth major league organization. He entered the pro ranks as a fourth-round pick of the Astros in 2013 and has also spent time with the Athletics. The 26-year-old was a prospect of some note in his younger days, but he hasn’t gotten an extended look in the bigs. Nottingham has so far amassed 85 plate appearances, all from 2018-20, and batted a playable .203/.306/.432 with five home runs. He’s out of minor league options, so he’ll have to stick on a Seattle roster that has received bottom-of-the-barrel production from catchers Luis Torrens and Tom Murphy in 2021.

The soon-to-be 30-year-old Brennan became a Mariner in December 2018 when they took him from the Rockies in the Rule 5 Draft. Brennan appeared with the Mariners from 2019-20, during which he dealt with oblique and shoulder issues and combined for 54 2/3 innings of 4.45 ERA/4.52 SIERA pitching with a 23.6 percent strikeout rate against a 12.7 percent walk rate. He still has three minor league options left.

Nottingham, 26, was a sixth-round pick by the Astros back in 2013 but has since been traded to the A’s (for Scott Kazmir) and then to Milwaukee (for Khris Davis). He’s appeared in parts of the past three seasons, hitting .203/.306/.432 in 85 trips to the plate. He’s also punched out in 35.6 percent of those plate appearances against a strong 10.6 percent walk rate.

At the time of both trades, Nottingham was a prospect of some note, but he’s never really tapped into enough of his above-average raw power. Scouting reports have long credited him with a strong arm to go along with that power, but they’ve also panned his overall defensive profile behind the dish.

Nottingham is out of minor league options, so Milwaukee either had to put him on the big league roster or designate him for assignment. With Omar Narvaez and Manny Pina both healthy — and Narvaez hitting at a ridiculous .396/.455/.604 pace — the Brewers unsurprisingly opted for the latter. They’ll now have a week to trade Nottingham or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. The latter route would allow them to assign him outright to their alternate site, keeping him in the organization while no longer occupying a 40-man roster spot.