Mariners' umpteenth reunion with Jacob Nottingham has a delightful twist

Sometimes the Seattle Mariners just don't know how to say goodbye to certain players, with Casey Lawrence being a prime example. Now, we have another player who the M's would seemingly rather reunite with, instead of just powering foward and going cold turkey without him.

As noted on Jacob Nottingham's MLB.com page under his transaction log, he signed a minor league deal to return to the Mariners organization on Mar. 1 and was subsequently assigned to the Tacoma Rainiers. While not coming back from the dead quite as many times as Lawrence, the re-signing of Nottingham did inspire this sublime post from Jared Carrabis:

Now aside from the fact we're sure Nottingham would be happy to receive constant attention from Jennifer Lopez and/or Garner under different circumstances, his re-signing did raise a relevant point. The Mariners seem to be doing just fine on the catching depth front, with the likes of Andrew Knizner, Jhonny Pereda and even Mitch Garner around to back up the durable Cal Raleigh.

Then throw in the fact that Nottingham hasn't actually appeared in a Major League game since 2021, and batted a woeful .193 with a .575 OPS in 17 Triple-A Tacoma games last season. Now, you might start to fear that the Mariners really are having trouble quitting him.

Jacob Nottingham joins the Mariners' coaching fraternity in a surprise twist

Fortunately for Mariners fans though, more information about the signing has come to light that actually provides a delightful twist to this whole situation. As per Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times, despite signing a deal as a player Nottingham is actually converting to coaching.

This would seem to imply Nottingham's playing career is over at nearly 31 years of age which (and we do genuinely mean this with full respect) is probably just as well as he looks to make it as a coach. The Mariners' talent pipeline is one of the things that has allowed them to become a contender, and it is often overlooked just how much it matters to have good coaches to usher the talent along.

The Mariners have had plenty of examples over the years of players who came back to the organization in a coaching capacity including the high-profile cases of Dan Wilson as manager, and Edgar Martínez as hitting-strategy coach. And more recently, Austin Nola returned to Seattle last December to become the team's bullpen coach.

While no one can know for sure how Nottingham will pan out as a coach, it's clear the Mariners have faith in him and combined with their track record in this area, he's in a tremendous position to succeed. As such, we join others in wishing him all the best for his future career.