From Switzerland to Yakima to Miami, how Noah Williamson’s baseball journey led him to Marlins
Noah Williamson understands the value of making the most of his opportunities.
It’s the reason he’s where he is today, the reason he’s with the Miami Marlins organization.
He bet on himself each step of the way and he needed to.
Because a year ago at this time, Williamson was essentially an unknown in the MLB scouting world due to timing and circumstance.
“Under the radar,” Williamson said.
That assessment very well might still be an understatement.
The 21-year-old outfielder was a late bloomer in high school who didn’t participate in high school showcases and didn’t start filling out his 6-4 frame until about a year ago.
He barely played during three seasons of college ball and eventually ended up in the West Coast League, a collegiate summer league, just to get regular at-bats.
His biggest playing experience, believe it or not, came as a member of Switzerland’s national baseball team — a chance that came only because he sent an email to the Swiss Baseball and Softball Federation asking if they needed players.
But the pieces were there — the size, the potential to hit for power, moments of solid defense.
“It was more about working on myself,” Williamson said of his journey. “I just wanted to be the best player I could be myself and then, hopefully, that would showcase myself.”
The Marlins found him and selected him in the 19th round of the 2021 MLB Draft. He made his pro ball debut a couple weeks later in the rookie-level Florida Complex League and has taken part in Marlins development camps over the course of the offseason, including the one that’s ongoing in Jupiter ahead of the start of minor-league spring training in March.
There’s no guarantee he’ll pan out — anything is far from guaranteed this early in a player’s pro ball career — but the opportunity is there.
And Noah Williamson doesn’t take any opportunity for granted.
“It’s just working hard,” Williamson said, “and staying in the moment.”
How the Marlins found Noah Williamson
With that, though, is the budding question:
Who is this Noah Williamson kid?
“Noah slipped through the cracks,” Marlins’ director of amateur scouting DJ Svihlik said on July 13, shortly after the three-day 2021 MLB Draft concluded. “There’s a really good chance that most people would say the same thing you just said: ‘We don’t know who that player is when his magnet was pulled.’ Fortunately, our guys do a really good job.”
The credit goes to Scott Fairbanks, the Marlins’ area scout who handles the Pacific Northwest. He put Williamson on Svihlik’s radar in late June after taking a trip to the West Coast League, a wood-bat collegiate summer league with teams in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alberta.
Fairbanks’ brief assessment of Williamson at that time, as recalled by Svihlik: Massive raw power. Good runner. Athletic.
“That’s all we have,” Svihlik said at the time.
Kyle Krustangel, the head coach of the Yakima Valley Pippins team Williamson would eventually join, called Williamson “an absolute hidden gem.”
“He’s truly a five-tool guy,” Krustangel said. “He’s got 110-plus exit velocity on several swings. He’s got a big arm and he really runs. But I think the type of person he is is even better than his tools. First to the yard, last to leave. Definite man of character.”
How he got to the Pippins takes a little bit to explain.
Williamson’s college career consisted of minimal playing time.
He never saw the field in 2019 at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, and only played in 18 games at Santa Barbara City College in 2020 before the season was called off due to COVID-19.
The anticipation was that the 2021 season would be played without issue.
And then, two weeks before the season was set to start, the news came down: The season wasn’t happening.
At that point, Williamson decided to transfer to Everett Community College in Washington.
The caveat: Everett’s roster was full. Williamson would be able to practice with the team, but he wouldn’t be able to play unless there was an injury. He got one at-bat with Everett: A first-pitch double.
His goal at that point, after just 19 games in three seasons, was to support his newest team, keep his head down, practice and get to summer ball, where he’d finally get a chance for consistent at-bats and regular playing time.
That came in the West Coast League and with the Pippins.
Krustangel reached out to then-Everett Community College coach JoJo Howie asking if he had any outfielders who might be interested in joining his team. Howie recommended Williamson.
Williamson signed a 10-day contract in early June. He went 2 for 5 with a double and two RBI in his first game.
“After Night 1,” Williamson said, “they offered me a full-season contract.”
Williamson kept his expectations low. The draft was a month away and he was just finally getting his feet underneath him.
He played in 24 games, primarily as Yakima Valley’s cleanup hitter, by the time the draft began. He was hitting .280 (28 for 100) with eight doubles, four triples, six home runs, 26 RBI and 26 runs scored.
A small sample size, but enough for Fairbanks to make the call and say he’s worth watching.
And enough for the Marlins to take a low-risk shot on him with their 19th-round pick.
“I had no idea at first,” Williamson said of the scouting process. “[Fairbanks] kind of show up and pulls me aside and I’m like ‘OK. This is really happening. It is a reality.’”
Playing for Switzerland
While Williamson was a unique find for the Marlins in MLB circles, there was one place where Williamson’s talent was well known: Switzerland.
It was abroad where Williamson truly felt his game come together.
In 2019, on a whim, he sent an email to the Swiss Baseball and Softball Federation asking if they needed players. While Williamson was born in California and raised in Nevada, his mom, Nicole, is Swiss, which made him eligible for dual-citizenship. He would travel there with his mom on holidays.
He received a message back about a half hour later asking how quickly he could get there.
Baseball, relatively speaking, is still new in Switzerland. The national team has only been around for about 40 years. For competition among European national teams, the Swiss right now play in the middle tier of teams among the continent (think English soccer with the relegation-promotion format of the Premier League and Championship League).
Chris Byrnes, the head coach of the Swiss National Team, likened the general talent on their national team to a “top Division 3, middle-of-the-road Division 2” college team.
As Byrnes remembers it, Williamson told him he was fascinated by a new baseball stadium that was built close to the Switzerland airport.
He also appeared in five games for Switzerland in the 2019 European Championship qualifier, going 8-for-19 with three home runs and eight RBI. Switzerland finished the tournament in fourth place.
“I was doing well,” Williamson said. “That’s where I started to build my confidence.”
Byrnes saw Williamson’s potential early. There were flaws in his game, mechanical adjustments in his swing that needed to be fixed, but the make-up was there.
“He just hadn’t played a lot,” Byrnes said. “That was his problem. He was a late bloomer who was just getting into his body. I was like ‘Man, if you could project him and work with him, he’s going to be really, really good.’”
Williamson’s highlights still pop out to Byrnes.
There was one game against Poland during a summer tournament in Slovakia in which he hit a pair of home run — the first to left-center field that hit the side of a building beyond the outfield, the second to right-center field that landed on the roof of a gas station.
“It was like 450 feet,” Byrnes said of the second home run.
One thing that was certain to Byrnes: Williamson’s passion for the game has never waned.
“He just knew that he had to get better,” Byrnes said. “And he kept trying. He was never down when he was around us.”
The two stay in regular communication and Byrnes did what he could to get Williamson noticed. Byrnes said he reached out to Dayton Moore, the then-general manager and current president of baseball operations of the Kansas City Royals, to put Williamson on the Royals’ radar. The Royals, according to Byrnes, were planning to wait to the end of the draft before making a decision on if they were going to take Williamson.
The Marlins snuck in a round earlier.
“I think that took some pressure off him,” Byrnes said of Williamson being drafted. “Now, he could just focus on getting better.”
The next opportunity
Williamson is putting his talent on display in Jupiter. He hit a pair of home runs during a simulated game on Saturday, giving a glimpse of the power the Marlins hope will continue to show up as his career progresses.
He changed “pretty close to everything” in terms of his mechanics this offseason after hitting .147 in 75 at-bats in the Florida Complex League. The bat path is longer, which helps him attack more of the strike zone.
He’s spending more time tracking pitches and being selective with when he attacks. His strikeout rate is still high and it’s a work-in-progress to minimize them.
And he’s learning the challenges that will come as he gets more consistent playing time against quality competition.
“I went into the offseason saying I need to make a change,” Williamson said. “I need to see a lot more pitches. I need to get in front of that machine non-stop. I need to see everything and make it difficult on me so that when I get to here, this season, it’s almost a little easier for me.”
The opportunity is here, and Noah Williamson isn’t taking it for granted.
“He’s all-in on baseball,” Byrnes said. “He doesn’t do stupid things and makes the right decisions. Those are the kinds of people you’re really happy for.”
.JPG)