Saturday, February 23, 2019

Mike Cather


Mike Cather was a sidearm relief pitcher who played in parts of three seasons for the Atlanta Braves, 1997-99. He was born in San Diego and pitched for the University of California, then was picked in the 41st round of the draft by the Rangers. He worked his way up to Class AA in 1995, but was released in midseason and signed on with an independent league team. After the season he was signed by the Braves organization and spent 1996 back at AA; he started 1997 at the same level but quickly moved up to AAA and then to the Braves in July. He had a great half-season in Atlanta and became the top set-up man to Mark Wohlers as the Braves won 101 games but lost to the Marlins in the NLCS; they thought highly enough of him to protect him in the expansion draft that November. In 1998 he was much less effective and got sent back to AAA in mid-July, almost a year to the day after being called up.  In 1999 he again started the season in Atlanta, but pitched very poorly in four appearances and was sent down again a week into the season. He pitched poorly in AAA as well and was released after the season. Picked up by the Marlins, he spent 2000 with their AAA affiliate and performed respectably but was not called up to the majors—instead, he was released again. The Cardinals signed him for 2001 for their AAA team, but he didn’t do well and was released a month into the season. At this point he apparently became a private pitching instructor, though he did get into five more games in 2003 for an independent league team. He finished his professional career never having started a game, and finished his major league career with one regular-season at-bat (an out) and one post-season at-bat (a strikeout).

In 2006 Mike became a minor-league pitching coach in the Red Sox organization, then in 2010 they made him an advance scout. In 2012 he went back to coaching, as the minor league pitching coordinator for the Padres, in 2015 he became the pitching coach for the Cubs’ AAA affiliate, and in 2016 he was the Marlins’ minor league pitching coordinator. In 2018 he was hired at the pitching coach and assistant coach for Arizona State University.



https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/C/Pcathm001.htm
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cathemi01.shtml
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?ID=9746

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