Nico Garbella

Nicola Garbella

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 2", Weight 185 lb.

• School California State University, Northridge, Palomar Junior College
• High School Cathedral Catholic High School

• Born December 11, 1992

Biographical Information

Nico Garbella has played for the Italian national team. He is the brother of Giovanni Garbella.

Nico was twice All-League at Palomar Junior College, hitting .368. He hit .209/.280/.284 for Cal State Northridge in 2014. He went to Parma in the Italian Baseball League in 2015 but hit only .178/.263/.232, though he played error-free ball in right. He improved his batting line to .258/.357/.309 in 2016, was 0-1 with two saves and a 4.32 ERA on the hill and played error-free ball. He joined Lorenzo Dobboletta and Stefano Desimoni as the Gold Glove outfielders.

He signed with Rimini and came up big in the 2017 European Champions Cup, with a two-run homer in the 8th off Mike Bolsenbroek of Buchbinder Legionäre Regensburg to break a scoreless duel open. He hit .400/.474/.800 with 3 doubles, 6 runs and 4 RBI in 4 games in the event and pitched 2 2/3 shutout innings (4 K). He tied Maik Ehmcke for 6th in the Cup in slugging, tied for 3rd in runs, tied Larry Infante and Carlos Duran for the most doubles, tied for 2nd in total bases (12, 2 behind Robel Garcia). Meanwhile, his brother tied for the steal lead. In the 2017 IBL, he hit .300/.403/.400 and had a 3.38 ERA in limited mound time. He hit .364/.500/.364 with 3 runs in 3 games as Rimini swept T&A San Marino in the 2017 Italian Series.

Garbella hit .250/.286/.250 in the 2018 European Champions Cup. Being the son of Italian natives, he was able to play for the Italian national team, first in the 2018 Haarlem Baseball Week. He had one of their two hits in a loss to the Netherlands' Rob Cordemans, had three hits in a win over Cuba and had two doubles and two runs against Germany. He finished at .409/.500/.545, tied for 3rd in OBP.

In the 2018 Super6, he hit .250/.348/.600 with two homers and five runs in five games, including three runs in the opening win over the German national team. He homered off André Hughes and Jiří Vavruša during the Super6, tying for 7th in the high-offense event in home runs and tying for 9th in runs while Italy finished second.