Jerry Crasnick has a piece up on ESPN.com regarding the remaining free agents. Specifically, he looks at the possibilities for Barry Bonds, Kyle Lohse, Livan Hernandez, Tony Clark, Sean Casey, Mark Sweeney, Kris Benson, Pedro Feliz, and Shannon Stewart.
These players have been talked about at length on MLBTR over the course of this off-season. The collective youth movement in MLB is really hurting these guys. Teams are beginning to replace them with younger, cheaper talent, and making vets work for their spots in the lineup and rotation.
True, many of the remaining free agents are going to catch on somewhere. Lohse, for instance, isn’t going to begin the season unemployed. He’ll end up taking what the market bears for his services. However, to me the most interesting part of Crasnick’s article was a one-sentence paragraph:
Don’t be surprised to see a few retirement announcements mixed in with the signings over the next few weeks.
So instead of looking at where each of the remaining free agents will land, let’s talk about who might opt for retirement. I’ll throw up my list, and you guys can add or subtract in the comments.
Damian Miller, Ryan Klesko, Corey Koskie, Luis Gonzalez, Reggie Sanders, Shawn Green, Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, Mike Sweeney, Sammy Sosa, Eric Milton, David Wells, John Thomson, Bob Wickman, Russ Ortiz, Antonio Alfonseca, Joe Table, Rudy Seanez, Aaron Sele, Ron Villone
I wanted to include Kenny Lofton, but I figure that some team will give him a shot at some playing time. Trot Nixon crossed my mind, as he’s been not so good over the past couple of years. But he could bide his time and catch on when the inevitable injury strikes in Spring Training. I included Milton and Ortiz because while they’re not at the typical retirement age, their performances over the past few years are poor enough that no team should even think about giving them a shot.
