Photo via MLB.com
Last week the Brewers made a series of routine transactions, filling up four spots on their 40-man roster with prospects who would otherwise have been eligible for next month’s Rule 5 Draft. Certainly many Brewers fans were already familiar with infielder Mauricio Dubon, who made a name for himself at the AA and AAA levels in his first season in the Brewers organization in 2017 and was the highest profile addition. More regular followers of the Brewers’ minor league affiliates may also recognize Freddy Peralta, who had a 2.26 ERA in 13 appearances for Biloxi in 2017, or Marcos Diplan, one of the three players acquired in the 2015 Yovani Gallardo trade.
All of those players have had ups and downs in their professional careers but none of them have struggled as much as catcher Jacob Nottingham, the fourth player the Brewers added. Nottingham is still only 22 years old but repeated the AA level in 2017, his fifth professional season, and his numbers appear to have stagnated a bit: He hit .234 with a .295 on-base percentage and .347 slugging in 2016 and posted .209, .326 and .369 marks in the same categories in 2017, respectively. Baseball America listed him as the #66 prospect in all of baseball before the 2016 season but backed down and left him off that list last winter, and it’s unlikely they’ll change their mind back this year. The fact that the Brewers felt compelled to protect a player with a .665 on-base plus slugging over two AA seasons speaks volumes about how thin the catching position is across baseball.
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Nottingham also demonstrated this fact a year ago. In the annual prospect rankings last winter he was consistently ranked somewhere in the teens among Brewers minor leaguers: Baseball America and MLB Pipeline had him as the Brewers’ 14th-best prospect, the highest rating he received from any mainstream evaluators. At that time there were significant questions about his ability to stick at catcher, which was likely his only shot to reach the major leagues.
Despite all of those defensive concerns, offensive struggles and a relative consensus that Nottingham was not a top prospect in the Brewers’ organization, Jim Callis of MLB.com still listed him as the tenth best catching prospect in all of baseball before the 2017 season. Uncertain as his future may be, Nottingham was viewed as more likely to make an MLB impact than the top minor league catcher in 20 organizations.
With that relative shortage of catching prospects in mind, the Brewers’ somewhat odd approach to the position comes into a bit of focus. When he was added last week Nottingham became the fifth catcher on the Brewers’ 40-man roster, joining Manny Pina, Stephen Vogt, Jett Bandy and Andrew Susac. The Brewers are the only MLB team with this many backstops on their roster. In fact, that’s more catchers than the bottom three teams (Arizona, San Francisco and St. Louis) combined.
At the very least, by the end of spring training some of those catchers will likely see their names scratched off that list. Stephen Vogt, Manny Pina and Jett Bandy are all out of minor league options (per Brewerfan.net), meaning any of the three would need to clear waivers to remain in the organization if they don’t make the Opening Day roster. The Brewers still haven’t announced whether they plan to offer Vogt a 2018 contract, so he could be gone before then. Furthermore, any need for a roster space this winter could spark a conversation about giving up on Bandy or Susac, as neither have done much to distinguish themselves at the major league level.
Until or unless they opt to make a move, however, the Brewers enter the winter with the most catching depth in all of baseball. There’s an old adage saying you can never have too many catchers, but they appear poised to test that notion.
