The Giants have signed first baseman John Nogowski to a minor league contract that runs through the 2022 season, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Jessica Kleinschmidt reports (Twitter links). Nogowski wasn’t on the open market for very long, as he was only released by the Pirates three days ago.
After making his MLB debut with a one-game cup of coffee with the Cardinals in 2020, Nogowski played in 19 more games with St. Louis this year before the Cards dealt him to Pittsburgh in July. Nogowski posted an 1.074 OPS over his first 53 plate appearances with his new team, but he fell back to earth after that tremendous start, and finished with a .677 OPS over his 123 PA in a Pirates uniform. For the season as a whole, Nogowski has hit .233/.301/.310 with one home run over 143 PA.
Nogowski is no stranger to the Bay Area, as he spent his first three pro seasons in the Athletics’ organization after being selected in the 34th round of the 2014 draft. The 28-year-old has posted some solid numbers over his minor league career, particularly in terms of on-base percentage — Nogowski’s .269/.388/.423 slash line over 680 PA at the Triple-A level is a bit better than his overall career numbers as a minor leaguer.
Given the Giants’ knack for revitalizing hitters, it might not be surprising to see Nogowski translate those minor league numbers into production at the big league level. Albeit in the small sample size of 147 PA in the majors, Nogowski has a very high 87.8% contact rate, so there is some interesting potential if Nogowski is able to improve the quality of that contact.
Nogowski has primarily been a first baseman during his career but has played a few games in the outfield, giving him a bit of the positional flexibility that the Giants prefer. Looking at San Francisco’s right-handed hitting bench options, Nogowski can provide depth if Donovan Solano leaves in free agency, or if the Giants wanted to move on from arbitration-eligibles like Austin Slater or Darin Ruf (though Ruf in particular has had an excellent season). While the Giants have a number of quality bench or platoon players, the club might be looking to stockpile even more depth should the National League adopt the DH for 2022 and beyond.
Go Giants! Another gem found!
Uh no. He has zero power whatsoever, and that’s not ideal for a 1B/OF. He’ll be depth but that’s it
Look like a Dave magaden type first baseman. But looks like he could hit 15 dingers. Though still don’t understand why everyone needs power if they can hit. Rod carew, wade boggs, Tony Gwynn never hit home runs but great ballplayers.
Because sabermetrics says that there’s higher probabilities of scoring a run thru a HR that with just hits…
Boggs could have been a HR hitter if he wanted to be. If you ever watched his BP sessions, he crushed balls out of the park all the time. He also had one season where he said he wanted to hit for more power and ended up hitting 24 HRs while batting .363 on the season! IMO, Gywnn and Boggs are two of the best pure hitters of all time. Both were amazing to watch on a daily basis.
Good glove also for a big guy.
Nah Donovan Solano and Thairo Estrada had 0 power and turned into very good hitters. In FZ we trust…
Estrada has pop. He’s shown it this season at the mlb and minor league level.
In Frank Zappa we, oh wait, I mean…. in Farhan Zaidi we trust!!! FZ!!!
What? Donnie Barrels has power!
Hopefully they drop Quintana soon. Dude is bad now.
Kapler laid an egg today! Should have walked the bases loaded so the defense could stay at double play depth imho.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. You intentionally walk the bases loaded, so La Stella can flip to Crawford for Crawford to complete the double play
Kapler is good at two things:
1. Laying eggs
2. Peeling the breading off of Mcnuggets
Lol Kapler’s managerial style and that great coaching staff are 1/2 the reason the giants are here
I’m almost at greater than 50%. Outstanding season for the coaching staff. The approach, the total buy in from the players, the individual improvements, the shifts, the roster management…..
Blown my mind.
Wise up Fletch. 100 wins.
agreed. guess it’s easy to say in hindsight, but was still a head scratcher imo
Wasn’t a head scratcher at all. Victor Caratini isn’t a good hitter. You pitch for the strikeout. It didn’t work out. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t.
The Big Nogowski did some pitching several times for the Pirates this year when they were down by double digits so there is that.
I don’t think Nogowski’s mound prowess is sweetening the deal. If Nogowski becomes a mainstay on the ML roster we can assume that things have gone horribly wrong.
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He will replacing the aging Belt and become a 280 avg with 15 homerun type hitter
But for those first 2 weeks with the Pirates he got to provide fodder for the “everyone the Cardinals let go is a star and Mozeliak is awful” crowd. Meanwhile the Cardinals just confirmed their 14th consecutive winning season and blitzed their way to postseason winning 12 straight against +.500 teams, including the teams who were ahead of them, Cincy and San Diego.The guys the Cards picked off the scrap heap, TJ McFarlin, Luis Garcia, JA Happ, LeBlanc (before injury) and especially Lester are major catalysts in the surge. Maybe the armchair GM’s will do better in their rotisserie league
I think you’re exaggerating how good Lester and Happ have been somewhat (although I don’t think you can necessarily go too wrong with adding veteran guys for the stretch run), but other than that I can’t argue with this. Like many, I was too quick to bury the Cards this year.
I am always amazed that major league management thinks that they can move big slow guys into the outfield to provide “positional flexibility”.It is tough enough to do with smaller athletic types who have always been infielders.Nogowski is a good depth piece but he is the proverbial definition of a solid AAAA player.
John’s current season is similar to Tommy La Stellas 2018. In 2019 he changed teams and added 150 pts to his OPS.
2 seasons? Next season will probably be over less than a year from now.
Move along nothing to see here.
Roster filler depth….that is all
I’m not sure I’d agree that he is familiar with the Bay Area because he was in the A’s organization for several years……Stockton is as close as he got to Oakland.
Don’t understand this move from the Giants POV.
All this guy can do is play baseball! Give him steady playing time and you have a solid player! Don’t knock him until he gets a chance!