rolling retirees: 2018 and beyond

former mets great mike pelfrey

12 seasons, 68-103, 4.68 ERA, 1.510 WHIP, 4.8 bWAR, $41m in salary

nice work if you can get it

about all you can say is that he didn't give up many homers

stephen drew

wes wilson, a backup catcher who hit .207/.260/.259 in 226 games over seven seasons in the yankee system

hadn’t really thought about it, but i guess matt holliday is probably done. good career; too bad he pulled a mantle and slipped under .300

batting average, feh

Aaron Laffey retired after Wednesday night's game. He had an 18.00 ERA in three starts with the 51s.

— Betsy Helfand (@betsyhelfand) June 7, 2018

MLB career K/9: 4.5

1,262,200 in career earnings if fangraphs is right

After suffering two concussions in the last eight months while playing in the Detroit Tigers organization, Blaise Salter has voluntarily retired from professional baseball because he fears the long-term risks that could come from brain injuries.

He’s afraid of ending up like his grandfather, Tigers great Bill Freehan, who has Alzheimer’s disease. Salter's only 24 years old.

While this close, loving family is fiercely private and sensitive about Freehan’s condition, Salter acknowledges his grandfather’s condition played a direct role in his decision.

“We are so close,” Salter said. “Seeing him the way his health has been, it’s definitely been an eye opener for me. I saw it firsthand how concussions have affected his life. Obviously, he had way more than I did, with the lack of equipment back in the day. To see that, I really thought about my life. I wanted to do anything I could, to prevent that from happening.”

There is evidence linking brain injuries to a higher risk of developing brain conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

It is not clear how many concussions Freehan suffered during his 15-year Tigers' career, but his family suspects concussions played a role in his condition.

And it was enough for Salter to walk away from baseball.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/jeff-seidel/2018/06/07/detroit-tigers-bill-freehan-alzheimers-blaise-salter/682734002/

http://larrybrownsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Jayson-Werth-hairy-bobblehead.jpg

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23927548/jayson-werth-says-done-playing-pro-baseball

presumably Chase Utley

https://sports.yahoo.com/chase-utley-hold-press-conference-171946434.html

the first overall pick in the 2006 draft, luke hochevar

not a great career, but at least better than mark appel's

i don't know much about him, but why did the royals push him through their minor league system so quickly despite him never putting up good numbers?

there was some weird shit surrounding his drafting -- dodgers took him in the first round in '05, he agreed to sign then changed his mind, then played indy ball in early '06. he didn't sign with the royals until he was almost 23. high-end college pitchers are *supposed* to move quickly, and he made his big league debut a week short of turning 24, but . . . yeah i dunno. probably some combination of the royals being terrible at player development + the fact that hochevar insisted on an MLB contract and was therefore already on the 40-man roster

sometimes when a guy like that retires i like to see how much money he raked in for his career.

answer: just shy of 25 million

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24380190/brandon-mccarthy-atlanta-braves-retire-end-season

ryan howard

Had no idea he wasn't already retired.

maybe he was hoping to pull a matt holliday but no one called

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dm_RhIrU4AAMM3k.jpg:small

They said it could never be done

a 6.66 K/9 would have been the icing on the cake but I shouldn’t quibble

david wright, after one final home series

Online prices for his presumed last start on 9/29 have skyrocketed in the last few minutes. (I already am going to the NY Film Festival that night.)

actually, not technically retiring but being medically sidelined a la prince fielder

Gulp.

https://www.mlive.com/tigers/index.ssf/2018/09/victor_martinez_retirement_1.html

reliever brad ziegler

a little surprising as he was still doing alright and getting saves this year.

Ike Davis has retired https://t.co/ciETMhLWTd

— HardballTalk (@HardballTalk) November 6, 2018

noted former pirate

Joe Mauer

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25228494/joe-mauer-retire-15-seasons-minnesota-twins

Utley.

At one point I would have thought both those guys were headed for the hall.

they still might be

It's really too bad that the Twins never won anything with Mauer, they had some good teams but seemed to choke against the Yankees every year. Even with all his injuries he had a hell of a career.

our beloved adrian beltre

:( :( :(

nooooooo

bartolo : is now the last active* player who played in the majors in the 20th century

huh.

P sure Armando Benitez is playing in Mexico still

catcher dan butler, after 768 minor league games

played in seven games for the red sox in 2014 and two more this year, going 5-for-25 with three doubles and throwing out three of eight attempted base stealers. he was never drafted

THANK YOU... pic.twitter.com/CzhaoU9YUH

— Mike Napoli (@MikeNapoli25) December 8, 2018

Only reached 140 games twice--I don't know if he was the most productive long-term part-time hitter of the past couple of decades, but he must be close (including one monster season in 2011: .320/.414/.631, 30 HR and 5.5 WAR in 113 games).

I really wish the Jays had hung onto him after the Wells deal, instead of flipping him for a reliever who’s name time has forgotten.

reliever tom wilhelmsen, officially

outfielder colby rasmus, unofficially

Alfredo Amezaga (who will join Atlanta as a coach)

awesome

http://mlb.mlb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=l135&t=p_pbp&pid=150119

Jaime Garcia, 32 years old

https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/news/jaime-garcia-expected-to-retire-from-mlb/c-302541372

you wouldn't know from looking at his stats, but he really did have some exceptional stuff. sometimes it really seemed like he was throwing a wiffle ball out there. alas, he was almost always injured or recovering from an injury.

i just learned that he and Fernando Valenzuela were the only two pitchers born in Mexico to start in a world series.

Two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber announces his retirement. Klubot had an exceptional career.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 9, 2024

Definitely a great pitcher, for half a decade he was arguably the best in the American League (Verlander was his main competition.) He got a pretty late start, had his breakthrough first full season / Cy Young award-winning year at age 28. He started three games in the world series against the Cubs, he was great in the first two and the Cubs were lucky to beat him up a bit in game 7. Definitely a Hall of Fame talent, if not a Hall of Fame career.

If he'd won a third Cy, would have been very interesting re the HOF.

During Corey Kluber's peak of 2013-2018:

He threw his Kluberball (or whatever we're calling his breaker) 3,690 times, including playoffs.

.120/.134/.193 against
44% swing-and-miss rate
49 XBH, or one every 75 times he threw it
+113 run value

just a legendary pitch pic.twitter.com/p4knrk4z8c

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) February 9, 2024

One of the first pitchers I actually watched/registered the name of when getting into baseball as an adult. Was very confused as I got back into the sport why everyone didn't just throw the weird sinking ball that he did, looked so effective you know? What a stretch he had

Rob Manfred (in 2029).

Manfred bristles whenever people suggest he doesn't like baseball and that he's hostile to fans but then he drops shit like "hey, Oakland fans aren't losing baseball; the Giants are still in the Bay Area" and it's clear that the criticisms of him are vastly understated.

— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) February 16, 2024

tbf manfred's job is, and always has been, explicitly to make more money for the owners. (as are the jobs of roger goodell, adam silver and gary bettman.) none of them 'care about the game' beyond weighing short-term profits for the owners vs long-term profits for the owners

north american pro sports are awfully lucrative so it's hard to imagine such a scenario, but these commissioners/owners would absolutely pull a coyote vs. acme deal if it made them money tomorrow

Hosmer out

Eric Hosmer has announced his retirement from baseball pic.twitter.com/xAt5nSkgnr

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) February 21, 2024

The rain has stopped

Josh Donaldson announced his retirement from Major League Baseball. pic.twitter.com/oRPtkz8si1

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 4, 2024

I forget and can not be assed to look up if he had a dead cat bounce at the end of last year

he was cooked all season

You ask I answer
https://i.postimg.cc/MGgkBPHM/IMG-6381.jpg

Don’t forget the Yankees putting him on the phantom 60-day IL in July only for him to be working out as normal in front of reporters and then he ended up playing in the playoffs for the Brewers?

Definition of the guy you love when he's on your team and playing well, then realize how really unlikeable he is the minute he goes somewhere else.

Objectively, he's 18th for third basemen in WAR/162 games (5.5)--tied with Chipper Jones, ahead of Brett, Beltre, and Santo, and well ahead of Brooks Robinson. (Also, Edgar and Molitor, if you want to count them as third basemen.) Which means only so much--he missed a lot of time because he couldn't stay healthy, and because he wore out his welcome everywhere he went.

also got a late start -- wasn't full-time unti he was 27

Glovework just posted a video of his time as a catcher, which is objectively the funniest thing they could do

Will never forgive JDon's calf which in my estimation was responsible for >50% of his total IL duration...

my first memories of him are as a catcher, when the A’s called him up to cover for Kurt Suzuki. He raked iirc

Hosmer retired with two years left on his contract? I think that means he gives up the salary owed to him in 2024-25?

Yeah, $26m over the two years

mike zunino

i guess we all knew this, but

MLB officially lists pitcher Stephen Strasburg as retired

Get paid young man

- won his team a title
- apparently lacks full use of his right arm?

he earned it

Didn't realize Kiermaier announced the other day:

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/when-you-know-you-know-blue-jays-kiermaier-says-this-season-will-be-last/

There were two or three seasons where it was fun arguing about him vs. Pillar for the Gold Glove--KK won them all.

Would not have guessed this: he's got a good chance to retire with 5.0+ WAR/162 games (5.2 right now).

James Paxton is retiring after this season

charlie culberson. not much of a player, but he had some moments

Wasn’t he trying to become a reliever?

A career Rockie for Immaculate Grid--I need all the help I can get with that outfit.

https://www.mlb.com/news/charlie-blackmon-retiring-after-14-seasons-with-rockies

will leave 40yo charlie morton as our only active charlie

post baseball career gonna hit like thunder pic.twitter.com/WGQvZq1mnS

— Nude Austria (@vodkasnowflake) September 23, 2024

Kevin Kiermaier was left off the Dodgers WS roster and has maintained that this was his last season.

Too bad--some late-inning defensive heroics would have been nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70D573iBRhI

Interesting--that's a meet-your-new-CF clip posted by the Jays before the 2023 season.

KK was in the dugout laughing at Graterol fielding the ball and holding it up for a while before throwing it to first

My friend and I were dying because we used to always do that in RBI Baseball - just hold it extra long in the spirit of cockiness

Nice exit:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/10/daniel-hudson-announces-retirement.html

(I mean, except for the 21.60 World Series ERA...)