rolling retirees: 2018 and beyond

Sean Doolittle

pic.twitter.com/De0lzs0TQs

— Sean Doolittle (@whatwouldDOOdo) September 22, 2023

Nelson Cruz. Announced on Adam Jones podcast.

Perfect (ironic) timing: one day after the Rangers win. He was central to 2011, mostly for his phenomenal hitting, a little bit to a ball he probably should have caught. (Again, NoTime--I was wrong!)

didn’t the 09 ws end with him striking out looking?

sorry, 2010

Swinging I would have said? He did however score the only Rangers run in that game, a bottom of the 7th homer off Timmy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk5pGUEOMn8

Here's the non-catch from 2011 (scored a triple for Freese). Hard to say--a lot of guys would have caught it, but not everyone by any means. I don't feel like going back into the thread, but the joke is that I said it would be remembered for a long time, something that would stay with Cruz for his career. At the time, Nelson Cruz was 31 years old and had hit 106 career home runs.

He went on to hit 358 more. And no one talks about the play anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEEOZpdp9bo

Fantasy mainstay Michael Brantley.

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