Boston infielder Mike Lowell told reporters that he's still likely to retire after this season, writes Alex Speier of WEEI. Lowell first suggested that 2010 would be his final season back in April.
"I'm pretty much set in knowing what I'm going to do after this year," the four-time All-Star said. "It will be fun. It will be fun enjoying my kids."
Injuries caused Lowell to play just 47 games this season in which he hit .226/.305/.380 with four homers. That slash line is a far cry from his career posting of .279/.342/.465 across 13 big league seasons.
The 36-year-old has been involved in trade rumors since the last quarter of 2009 when he was nearly sent to Texas for catcher Max Ramirez. However, a torn radial collateral ligament in Lowell's right thumb caused the Rangers to get cold feet and back out of the swap. There's still a possibility the veteran could finish the year elsewhere as he cleared waivers in early August.
Lowell has earned roughly $76.5MM in his career thanks in large part to the three-year, $37.5MM contract he signed with Boston in November of 2007.
No surprise there.
I would wanna retire here to if the team i played for treated me as crappy as they have, i know Mikey is free agent at the end but it seems like this season with the sox where they wouldnt trade him when he requested for one,didnt play him and i belivie he also asked to be released, it seems like he lost the love of the game maybe he hasnt , but if he was somewhere where he could play at a normal basis early in the year before injuiries he might have a change of a heart , I like mikey and i would like to see him come back for one year at least and show he can still play i think he can but i dont know where or how much playing time he would get. I would retire if i had to be in a role like this year. He has money,he has the ring ,he has good numbers and fairly young. If he can start go for it if not retire
well they tried to trade him. I haven’t heard anything about him specifically requesting a trade or release, just playing time. In any case, I don’t think that paying a guy $12.5 million to sit on the bench counts as horrible treatment, the team shouldn’t be required to pay his salary for him to play for another team if they don’t think it’s in their best interests. If he didn’t want to be there that badly, he could’ve just retired already.
Lowell knows this, it’s what he’s said before. I don’t get why he gets so very much sympathy from everyone.
Yes i know they did try,And no it doesnt qualify as horrible treatment but why would he retire if he still loved the game? But they coulda done what Kenny Williams did for Thome last year trade him to a contending team, granted Thome can still still hit and would have more sutiors but still
Well the Red Sox are still a contending team. And in response to your first post Lowell isn’t fairly young, he is 36 with hip problems which makes him play more like 40.
I was saying he is still young outside of baseball , He is baseball old
When it’s time to hang it up, it’s time to hang it up.
If Mike were a stand up guy he would return 2/3 of his 2010 salary ($12,500,000) to the front office. He certainly did not earn what he is being paid by the Sox, based on his performance numbers this year to date. Granted, he has a binding contract, but has played poorly on most occassions because of injuries he sustained in 2009 and carried into the current season. Obviously, the Sox front office is paying him nonetheless for the totality of his services rendered throughout his stay in Boston. A classy act by Theo and Co. for and otherwise classy player. Too bad the front office cannot hang onto Mike to serve in some other capacity but it appears Lowell plans to fully separate himself from MLB after this season. Time to go fishing it would seem. Lets hope he catches some big ones.
I’m a Yankees fan and I really feel bad for both Lowell and Veritek. The Red Sox have really treated them like crap recently and Veritek is the team captain!
How have they treated Varitek like crap? He was a back up catcher coming into this season and he knew it. And if you’re talking about not playing at all over the last month it’s because he has been injured.
i know he’s hurt but it’s like they pretend he’s not their captain. I really feel like they would strip him of it if it wasn’t for the bad PR they’d get. Didn’t they try to trade him recently? I mean getting Victor Martinez wasn’t exactly the best way to show you had confidence in your starting catcher, regardless of the good pickup it was (unless they got him because he was inured). I just think the organization wants them gone already. Jorge Posada hasn’t been too good this year, but at least the organization still considers him their starter
The Sox never tried to trade him. And Varitek isn’t good enough to be an every day starter anymore since his offensive numbers when he is an everyday starter over the last few years are terrible. They needed an upgrade in at catcher and offense when they traded for Martinez, it wasn’t just a move of want it was a move of necessity. The Yankees have Posada as their starting catcher because they don’t currently have a better option to go to. They have Montero waiting in the wings but there is no guarantee he will do anything at the Major League level. If the Yankees had traded for Martinez the Yanks would be starting Martinez over Posada. And obviously Varitek was fine with taking the backup role or else he wouldn’t have signed a contract with the Sox.
Tek definitely still deserves captain status and that’s why he keeps it. He is still valuable to the team in his leadership and ability to handle a pitching staff. How are you supposed to treat a captain? Just because you have a player who is a captain doesn’t necessarily mean they deserve to play more than other players. If I’m not mistaken there are only three teams that have an official team captain and they are players that the team feels show excellent leadership, which is what being a captain is all about, they understand if the team is looking in a different direction at their position. If the Sox didn’t value him they wouldn’t have signed him.
If you had the chance to trade for a better catcher than Posada like Martinez, Mauer, and McCann amongst others and have Posada coming off the bench wouldn’t you do it?
honestly unlike other yankee fans I don’t think we need every free agent out there, sometimes homegrown talent is a lot more filling to me. I’m interested in seeing how our farm system catchers do so I don’t think we need a free agent in there. CC? yes joe Mauer? no
oh absolutely i agree with you there, but as bad as posada has been i’d still rather have him as opposed to signing a younger catcher who will block the younger guys from coming up. I’d like to see what they do with him after his contract because we really need to put faith in our farm system.
Agreed and I hope the Yankees start to go that way because as a fan of the Red Sox and speaking for fans of every other team in baseball, we are getting really tired of the Yankees signing any free agent they want.