Jorge Posada, Orlando Cabrera, Craig Counsell, and Adam Everett retired this offseason, as MLBTR's free agent tracker shows. Which other unsigned free agents may be leaning toward calling it a career?
- Milton Bradley: The Mariners released him on May 16th, and we haven't heard anything since aside from off-the-field issues. I've heard that while he has not retired, as of now it does not look like Bradley will play in 2012.
- J.D. Drew: About a week ago, Jon Heyman wrote that Drew is "very likely to retire."
- Jason Kendall: In July, we learned that Kendall was out of the picture for 2012 after re-tearing two tendons in his right rotator cuff. Kendall's career might be over, wrote Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe at the time.
- Derrek Lee: This month Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggested a kind of "forced retirement" is possible for Lee, who has reportedly been picky so far this offseason.
- Jason Varitek: The catcher is mulling retirement, wrote Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald this month.
- Javier Vazquez: Reports this month continue to indicate that Vazquez will retire. The 35-year-old would be finishing on a high note.
- Tim Wakefield: He told John A. Torres of Florida Today that retirement is possible, though the knuckleballer hopes to return to the Red Sox.
That would be something. May as well sign Manny Ramirez too.
Or just not very funny…
Brian Roberts should retire too.
Yeah but the Rays wouldn’t want to add a player for the kind of money he wants
Because Thome is replacing Ross Gload, not Ryan Howard. It looks like Howard will be ready earlier than expected. How would it make sense to pay D.Lee 6-8 million to play 1B for a month then what pinch hit? Its not the AL, you can’t have him DH you really think Lee would even consider being on the bench? Mayberry/Wigginton are cheap Howard replacements for the time he misses and Thome only cost 1.25 mil. Why blow money on a big name replacement? Doesn’ make any sense.