The Mariners announced that right-hander Matt Festa went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Nashville. He’s been invited to Major League Spring Training as a non-roster player.
The 26-year-old Festa made his MLB debut with the Mariners in 2018 and has pitched a total of 30 2/3 innings of relief since that time. To this point in his relatively young career, Festa has managed a 4.70 ERA with a 25-to-14 K/BB ratio and a 36.5 percent ground-ball rate in the Majors.
Festa, a seventh-round pick back in 2016, has averaged about 93 mph on his four-seamer — rather pedestrian among relievers in today’s game — but the righty’s success in both Double-A and Triple-A could earn him another look with the Mariners in the future. The Seattle bullpen is short on proven assets and could feature a Rule 5 pick (Yohan Ramirez) as well as several out-of-options hurlers to begin the season (Matt Magill, Sam Tuivailala, Dan Altavilla and offseason pickup Carl Edwards Jr.). That could be a recipe for a fair bit of in-season turnover, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to Festa back in Seattle at some point this summer, particularly if he’s able to continue his strong upper-minors production.
Pretty sure the Mariners Triple-A affiliate is Tacoma not Nashville.
Nashville has a great restaurant called Puckett’s. Across from their library which is a fascinating building itself. What a great town.
Not a Country & Western fan which is kind of the heart and soul of Nashville so I really wasn’t enamored. The marquees didn’t dazzle me. Smaller and less impressive than I expected. As a result I was only there from like 2-7pm and I can’t say I have any interest in going back. Memphis was better.
No good hat restaurants either
Ha!
Nope, Matt Festa!
really Klentak?
Triple A Tacoma…Nashville is the Texas Rangers.
Glad they were able to keep Festa as he has the offerings to be successful. Last year he clearly had a bad year, but he could get things back the right way. I’m kind of surprised a team like the Orioles or Tigers didn’t take a shot on him.
Wow! They outrighted him to the Texas Ranger AAA club!
LoL