Nomar Mazara

From BR Bullpen

Nomar Shamir Mazara Jiminian

  • Bats Left, Throws Left
  • Height 6' 3", Weight 215 lb.

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Biographical Information[edit]

Outfielder Nomar Mazara was signed by the Texas Rangers as an amateur free agent before the 2012 season. The scouts were Rodolfo Rosario and Mike Daly. He spent that season with the AZL Rangers, where he hit a solid .264/.383/.448 in 54 games. However, moved up to the Hickory Crawdads of the South Atlantic League in 2013, he found the going more rough, as his batting average fell to .236. He did show solid power with 23 doubles and 13 homers in 126 games.

He was a member of the World Team in the 2015 Futures Game. That season, he hit a combined .296/.366/.443 in 131 games split between the Frisco RoughRiders of the AA Texas League and the Round Rock Express of the AAA Pacific Coast League. He hit 26 doubles and 14 homers, scored 68 runs and drove in 69 in spite of being over four years younger than the average player in those leagues. That came on the heel of a 2014 season in which he had hit 28 doubles and 22 homers between Hickory and Frisco.

Nomar was the youngest player in the major leagues when he made his major league debut with the Rangers on April 10, 2016, two weeks shy of his 21st birthday. He made the debut a memorable one when he homered and got two singles off Jered Weaver of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Unfortunately, he was seemingly the only player on the team able to handle the Angels' veteran hurler that day, as his solo homer accounted for the Rangers' lone run in a 3-1 loss. He had started the year in AAA and had gone 6 for 12 prior to his call-up which came about when Shin-Soo Choo went on the disabled list with a strained muscle. He had a great first month, winning American League Rookie of the Month honors after hitting .333 in April. He repeated the honor in May, when his average fell to .283 but he displayed some excellent power, banging 7 homers and driving in 17 runs. On June 12th, he won a game with his throwing arm as he nailed down the Seattle Mariners' Robinson Cano at second base with a perfect throw from right field to end the game. The Mariners had just closed to within two runs of the Rangers as Cano's hit had scored Ketel Marte to make it 6-4. In 145 game, he hit .266 with 20 homers and 64 RBIs. He was not a starter in the postseason however, as he only went 1 for 6 in the Division Series.

He started off 2017 with a bang as on April 7th, he had 6 RBIs including his first career grand slam in leading the Rangers to a 0-5 win over the Oakland Athletics. He had started the year hitting .538 with 9 RBIs over his first four games. He played 148 games, hitting .253 with 30 doubles, 20 homers and 101 RBIs. He split his time on defence between right field and left field. In 2018 he hit well in April, at .284 with 3 homers and 14 RBIs in 29 games, then caught fire in May, as he hit 7 homers in his first 9 games. On May 9th, against the Detroit Tigers, he tied the game in the 7th inning with a first homer, then ended it with a walk-off shot off Warwick Saupold in the 10th as Texas won, 5-4. He played 128 games that season, this time as the Rangers' regular right fielder, and hit .258 with 20 homers and 77 RBIs. On June 21, 2019 he made the highlight reels when he launched a homer that traveled 505 feet, into the right field balcony at Globe Life Park. It was the longest homer ever at the ballpark, and matched the longest distance measured since the start of the Statcast era in 2015 (Trevor Story of the 2018 Colorado Rockies had also hit a ball at that distance). His victim was Reynaldo Lopez of the Chicago White Sox. He played 116 games that season, hitting .268 with 19 homers and 66 RBIs. On December 10th, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox in return for minor leaguer Steele Walker.

He spent just one season with the White Sox, and it was the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, during which teams played only 62 games. On a strong team that returned to the postseason after a long absence, Nomar played 42 games as the team's regular right fielder, hitting .228 with 1 homer and 15 RBIs. Playing alongside him him were two of the best young outfielders in the game, Luis Robert, who finished second in the Rookie of the Year vote, and Eloy Jimenez, the veteran was the least productive of the trio and eventually sat down in favor of Adam Engel, normally known for his defense, but who had a much better year with the bat. In the postseason, he seemed to find his stroke again, going 3 for 6 with a double and 2 RBIs, but the Sox were eliminated in three games by the Oakland Athletics in the Wild Card Series. He became a free agent after the season and left the Windy City for Motown, signing a one-year deal with the Detroit Tigers on February 12, 2021.

Notable Achievements[edit]

Further Reading[edit]

  • Anthony Andro: "Mazara rested, ready to get back to work: Rangers outfielder faces third MLB season with renewed confidence", mlb.com, January 21, 2018. [1]

Related Sites[edit]

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