rolling retirees: 2018 and beyond

daniel bard has had enough

Bard would appear in just 13 innings over that four-year span, allowing 35 earned runs while walking 46 and hitting 16 batters. Yet he continued to motor on, trying anything and everything to get back to the big leagues.

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/1/4/16797700/daniel-bard-retirement

I remember seeing him at NYY in a late sept/early october game when we first came up and the air went out of the stadium when his name was announced.

rolling unretirees

Good to be back in the cage again. The comeback is real. pic.twitter.com/uA8FMjyTjv

— Rafael Palmeiro (@Rafael_Palmeiro) January 5, 2018

former pirate great justin morneau

https://www.twincities.com/2018/01/08/report-justin-morneau-set-to-retire-rejoin-twins-as-special-assistant

minnesota native and 12-year twin glen perkins

mark appel, the top pick in the 2013 draft

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2757009-why-mark-appel-perhaps-the-biggest-bust-in-mlb-history-is-retiring-at-26

backup catcher eric fryer

xp long way down from the #1 pick

He's excited to play Settlers of Catan or one of his 30 other board games with John, with whom he shares a one-floor home

Ex-A’s ace Jarrod Parker tells the @sfchronicle he is officially retiring; a look at his life after promising career derailed by injuries: https://t.co/SFb6gVc6K7 via @sfchronicle

— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) February 13, 2018

2009 AL ROY Andrew Bailey

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.

former red sox third baseman of the future will middlebrooks

Willie Midds was basically a nicer, crappier Shea Hillenbrand

I didn't know Ricky Romero had been out there the past five years, trying to make it back.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/toronto-blue-jays-ricky-romero-retirement/

also shawn tolleson -- spent the last two years trying to come back from TJ but decided it wasn't going to work out

Dillon Gee, who spent the 2018 season with the Chunichi Dragons

jarrod saltalamacchia

cc sabathia will retire at the end of the season

doug fister

^his jersey will live on ironically at gay fetish events

?! I hardly knew her!

Bruce Bochy at end of season

Bruce Bochy announces he will retire after the 2019 season pic.twitter.com/TWiBLgL3Oh

— Kerry Crowley (@KO_Crowley) February 18, 2019

Ichiro has retired

Jason Hammel has retired

Hammel will always have the 2016 Cubs reunions to come, he had a heck of a season for that club.

punxsutawney native devin mesoraco, apparently

one monster season in 2014 and then just a ton of injuries

Allen Craig will join the Padres' front office as an advisor to baseball ops, thus ending his playing career. In 6 big league season, he batted .276/.333/.435. He won the '11 WS, was an All-Star in '13 and is the only player to score a WS game-winning run on an obstruction call.

— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) April 12, 2019

craig gentry

at 1.1 bWAR in 68 games, he was the third-most-valuable position player who ended 2018 with the orioles

Jake Peavy

james loney

once and future met matt den dekker retired last week

cody decker, 32, hitter of 204 minor league homers, after hitting a walk-off for triple-a reno on friday

he was 0-for-11 in 12 major league plate appearances

also one of 19 players from the 2009 class a fort wayne tincaps to reach the majors, which is maybe some kind of record

troy tulowitzki

finishes with *exactly* the same bWAR as . . . nomar

damn.

that is an amazing factoid, too

Probably my least favourite Blue Jay ever. Spent as much time as a Jay engaging in baseball-related activities as he did playing baseball. And more time complaining.

Our coaching staff just added an All-Star, y’all. Let’s go. https://t.co/1U4WdB42gd 🤘

— Texas Baseball (@TexasBaseball) July 25, 2019

i love the understated headline there by texassports.com

but that's what you get when you leave it up to the editorial team of The Ex-Ass Ports, Inc

ilb twitter fave ty kelly

Now that I don’t play professional baseball anymore, I’d just like all the current players and fans to know that the game was better when I used to play.

— Ty Kelly (@tykelly11) August 25, 2019

pic.twitter.com/czVJztm9iY

— David Freese (@david23freese) October 12, 2019