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.

three-time detroit tiger cameron maybin

jon lester

melky cabrera

Travis Snider, who last played in MLB in 2015.

top-10 prospect in 2008-9; career bWAR of 4.3. solid season with the pirates in 2014 tho!

The guy was an absolute beast in the minor. Vlad-like stats and then totally crumbled in the majors. Probably the biggest bust in jays history?

People sometimes ask me.. What is it like to play "Pro Baseball"?

Retirement has brought up a lot of different emotions and memories for me. It's given space to think.

16 seasons in professional baseball. Here is a thread on where it has taken me..

— Travis Snider (@Lunchboxhero45) January 15, 2022

I have felt on top of the world. I have felt all alone.

This fucking sport, amirite?

francisco liriano, 38

at three years and $39m, he was the recipient of what is still the pittsburgh pirates’ largest-ever free agent deal; a year and a half into it they had to give the blue jays two prospects just to take him off their hands

One of those prospects, Reese McGuire, was pretty great his first two seasons/150 AB; nothing since, although still with the Jays.

and better known for something else

Parking lot? I'd forgotten!

Longtime big-league first baseman Adrián González, who played for the Rangers, Padres, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Mets across 15 MLB seasons, officially announced his retirement today on his personal Instagram.

Gonzalez last played in the majors in 2018, but he was active as recently as this past season, playing 43 games with the Mexican League’s Mariachis de Guadalajara and posting a .340/.412/.531 batting line in 187 trips to the plate. He also represented Mexico in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), where he collected three hits and a walk in 12 plate appearances.

ryan zimmerman

dude had himself a career. all time Nationals leader in at bats, Runs, RBIs, Hits, doubles, home runs, total bases, xbh and GIDP!

interesting list

All-time walk-off HR:
13 - Jim Thome
12 - Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, Frank Robinson, Babe Ruth
11 – David Ortiz, Tony Perez, Ryan Zimmerman

That's 10 Hall of Famers, plus Zim. And if his shoulder troubles of 2012-14 don't force him to move to 1B ...

— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) February 15, 2022

...he still wouldn't have been a hall of famer

haha, yeah. plus there are quite a few players who might have been hall of famers if it wasn't for those few years and that one injury that derailed the career...

zimmerman was good, though, and it is an interesting list.

dwight gooden stands out. even WITH all of his troubles he has a case for HOF

as an aside, i think players that were suspended for recreational drug use should get bonus points for the hall of fame. that's like playing on Nightmare difficulty in doom

LHP and union man andrew miller

Fun player for a guy who’s super square

when he was good, his arm release was 16 feet to the side of the mound, a slider would miss a leftie's hip by a quarter inch and then catch the very opposite edge of the strike zone as they weren't sure whether to get out of the way, swing, or take

todd frazier

jake arrieta

most famous guy born in my hometown (even as an infant, he had the instincts to move far away a few months later)

his 2014-15 run was amazing, and of course being part of the 2016 cubs team

his career arch was a weird one...
BAL (4 yrs): hot garbage
CHC (6 yrs): absolute god
PHI (3 yrs): average
SD (1 yr): disaster

i guess it follows a typical trend – but that bad-to-good-to-bad line was so incredibly extreme

he was tapering off his last couple of seasons in chicago. but yeah he was amazing in the mid-2010s.

i was trying to find when he tweeted the picture of himself naked wearing an apron (?) but all my searches are dominated by when he was naked in the ESPN body issue.

Yeah when i think of jake arietta i think of sam miller sheepishly describing him as “built”

when i think of jake arrieta -- perhaps even more so than when i think of anthony recker -- i think of dr morbius

David Wright was the ultimate Morbs player

joe panik

Hang the DJ.

That double pay in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series will live for infinity for us Giant fans. Good luck in life Joe.

Panik on the street's of London...

I was a pretty big Smiths fan and even saw them three times but always hated that song. Yes, they were bonkers live, an experience of a lifetime.

this remains one of the better fielding plays i've ever seen

ICYMI, this is what Joe Panik did last night in Sacramento. #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/ZtIonPMvUP

— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) September 4, 2015

That was an outstanding play, I have never seen that before. He's was a great second baseman but his bat only lasted like rwo seasons. The Giants had to move on.

The only Smiths song I love!

(I believe he played in Toronto for six or seven minutes.)

Ya they got a decent return for him too iirc - Dickerson and Cimber

i've been watching a dickerson this year. he got yepez'd

The only Smiths song I love!

Tastes, huh. To me it was the first song where it was the Smiths by the numbers. No originality to it and he is being a huge dick (with those lyrics). This was the same band that did brilliant songs like "Still Ill" and "The Queen is Dead?" No wonder they broke up, garbage.

retire, morrissey

he played about 20 miles away from me last weekend in Pasadena for two nights via Cruel World. Yes, he needs to go away.

he got yepez'd

I do not know what this means.

yeah, as soon as i posted that i felt dumb, because why would you! there's just some rookie on the cardinals, juan yepez, whose performance so far means that dickerson loses his DH platoon spot with Pujols (who has been alright so far this season but is going to play often no matter what, because march to 700)

russell martin, officially

really good player; put up 5.7 bWAR in just 111 games with the pirates in 2014 and has to be among the best free agent signings they ever made (which is admittedly a low bar to clear)

fourth all-time in bWAR by a canadian

I’m like 99% sure I know who the top three are.

j.a. (pronounced ‘jay’) happ

Martin caught 30 out of Happ's 33 starts the year he went 20-4.