MLBTR congratulates Jason Lane and Armando Galarraga in retirement and wishes them the best in their post-baseball careers. Here’s the news on these prominent former big leaguers who are hanging up their gloves…
- The Brewers announced that Lane will join their Major League coaching staff next season, officially ending a rather remarkable 17-year pro career. Lane, 38, was a former Baseball America top-100 prospect who spent his first six MLB seasons as an outfielder with the Astros, including a big 26-homer season for Houston’s 2005 NL championship team. Lane fell out of the bigs after the 2007 season, however, and after a few years in the minors and independent leagues, pitching became his unlikely path back to the majors. His comeback culminated in one final cup of coffee in MLB as Lane appeared in three games for the Padres in 2014, posting an impressive 0.87 ERA and striking out six batters in 10 1/3 innings.
- Galarraga tells George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press that he’s retiring at age 33 due to arm injuries. He is attending the Winter Meetings with the hope of landing a position as a minor league pitching coach, and Newsday’s Marc Carig reports that Galarraga has interviewed from the Mets about a job. Galarraga posted a 4.78 ERA over 542 innings with four clubs from 2007-2012, though he’ll always be remembered for his “imperfect game” on June 2, 2010 as a member of the Tigers. Umpire Jim Joyce’s infamous blown call on what should’ve been Galarraga’s final out of a perfect game has often been cited as one of the key influences behind MLB’s implementation of the expanded replay system used today.
