Veteran slugger Mark Reynolds, who enjoyed a 13-year big league career split between the Diamondbacks, Rockies, Orioles, Indians, Cardinals, Nationals, Yankees and Brewers, announced in an appearance on Mad Dog Sports Radio on SiriusXM that he’s officially retired (Twitter link, with audio).
“I’ve moved beyond that,” Reynolds said when asked if he planned to seek another contract once MLB’s transaction freeze has been lifted. “I’ve retired. … I’m really enjoying time with my family, and it’s time for me to move on and find something else to do.”
The 36-year-old Reynolds spent the majority of the 2019 season in the Rockies organization, serving as a part-time first baseman and a bench bat until he was cut loose on July 28. He’d enjoyed a quality season with the Nationals a year prior in 2018, but Reynolds struggled to the lowest offensive numbers of his career with the Rox last year.
Originally a 16th-round pick of the Diamondbacks out of the University of Virginia back in 2004, Reynolds made his big league debut less than three years after being drafted. Reynolds was never considered one of the organization’s premier prospects — his No. 7 ranking on Baseball America’s list of D-backs prospects prior to the ’07 campaign was the only time he broke their top 30 — Reynolds hit the ground running. He was promoted to the big leagues in mid-May and closed out the remainder of the season as a regular in the lineup, hitting .279/.349/.495 with 17 home runs.
By 2008, Reynolds was Arizona’s everyday third baseman. His power was unquestionable, although the same could be said of his questionable contact skills. Reynolds became one of the game’s quintessential boom-or-bust players, regularly headlining home run and strikeout leaderboards alike. From 2008-11, he averaged 35 big flies per season but also led his league in strikeouts each year along the way. At that time, a player who was punching out in roughly a third of his plate appearances was an alarming anomaly; the league average strikeout rate back in Reynolds’ first full year was 17.5 percent — a full six percent lower than 2019’s mark.
Reynolds had a rough year in 2010, prompting the D-backs to trade him to the Orioles in return for reliever David Hernandez and prospect Kam Mickolio. He bounced back with the Birds and helped them to the postseason in 2012, but Baltimore declined an $11MM club option over Reynolds’ final arbitration year that offseason and non-tendered him, making him a free agent for the first time in his career.
Reynolds would bounce from Cleveland to New York to Milwaukee to St. Louis to Colorado to D.C. and back to Colorado on a series of one-year and minor league deals from that point forth. He delivered some productive seasons along the way and even popped 30 homers for the 2017 Rockies before giving the Nationals an absurd 5-for-5, two-homer, 10-RBI day in 2018 (video link).
Reynolds will conclude his playing career with a .236/.328/.453 batting line over the life of 6243 plate appearances and 1688 Major League games. In that time, he belted 298 home runs, 253 doubles, 14 triples and stole 64 bases while also scoring 794 times and knocking in 871 runs. The slugger took home nearly $30MM in career earnings while providing a litany of tape-measure home runs on which we can all fondly look back. Best wishes to Reynolds and his family in whatever lies ahead.
Not a bad career for the kid out of Virginia Beach!
Enjoy your retirement. Thank you for all the great times. A former St Louis Cardinals will always be remembered for being a good player.
The talent that’s come (and continues to come) from VB and border cities is astounding.
Yeah, it wasn’t bad at all, despite the strikeouts and what the batting average worshippers will say about it smh.
That’s a wrap on Reynold’s career
Lol
You could have done better calling it a Reynold’s wrap
I disagree, I like the subtlety of the op’s better
The big galoot was always fun to watch!
The Sheriff
The Sheriff launched some bombs in OCACY!
OPACY? The Sheriff of Swattingham.
That he did!
And it was only a few years ago I had such high hopes Reynolds would become the all-time strikeout king. Chris Davis and Justin Upton, step forward. I’m counting on you.
Thought he would have been worth more than 6.8 WAR career. Made 30M though.
Enjoyed watching him play. All the best to him and his family
Not to be picky, but he also played for the Indians in 2013 before the Yankees signed him.
Whoops — had them in there later in the post and even linked to an Indians HR at the end, but forgot him up in the intro paragraph it seems.
Thanks. Updated.
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also played in cleveland briefly
2 homeruns away from 300
Right!
702 homeruns away from 1000
Damn I was hoping he’d break the strikeout record
He broke the single-season strikeout record…
One outta two ain’t bad.
and #9 on the all time strikeout list!!!!!
Favorite D’back when he was here. Special K was always fun to watch! Bummer, really wanted to get my game worn signed by him.
Thanks for the memories Mr Reynolds and enjoy the time, we’re the same age so thanks for making me feel old today!
The amazing thing is that he played completely blind.
Well, legally blind…
Nobody’s going to at least research this one a bit?
Good luck Mark!
Wa-hoo-wa. Thanks for a great career, Mark!
Loved him with the birds! I’ll always remember the double play vs the Yankees in 2012 where Tex was safe by a mile and Reynolds did this little spin celebration. Fun times. If you can’t tell by my name I loved that team! Reynolds was a huge part of it. Great career
One of my favorites. Even though it was spring training I’ll never forget the ball he hit over the scoreboard against David Hernandez. Couldn’t find the video anywhere, but here’s an article on it: espn1420.com/mark-reynolds-blasts-monster-500-foot…
Reynolds was analytics before analytics, even times showing enough with the eye to be a real positive force in todays modern game- Surprisingly his Col days aged well as well
Interested if anybody ever taught him launch angle, he was always looking to get air born way before the Launch angle era boomed
A true grip it and rip it leave the 3 iron at home type of player we see so often today
He was one of my favorite players. Good luck to you and your family in retirement.
I don’t know if I should be surprised he didn’t make an all star team. I mean… 300 career homeruns is no slouch..
First and third are usually pretty stacked positions, especially for power. But you’d think he’d make one. I agree
With 298 home Runs, Mark is sitting at number 150 all time MLB Home Runs! Pretty dang good seeing there have been somewhere around 15,000 Major League players in history! Also interesting trivia- only NY Yankee to hit a home run in his first at bat for the Yanks and last at bat for New York! Pretty good clubhouse guy from what I’ve heard over the years. Thanks Mark- enjoyed watching you play!
I’ll never forget watching a game at Chase early in Mark’s career, when he hit several home runs and we were like “who is this guy?” Then he kept mashing and did a good job keeping his career going by moving to 1st and developing better plate discipline. Great to see that he wants to spend more time with family when he could probably play another year or two. He’s got a lot to be proud of in his career.
Guy sure could hit them taters! Enjoy retirement. Travel…..er, maybe hold off on that.
Wish he could have knocked 2 more dingers to get him to 300. Reynolds had major power but was God awful in the field.
I thought he was done for sure after 2014. Pretty amazing that he was able to make himself useful enough to stick around another 5 years.
I remember vomiting in my mouth when an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball analyst compared a mid-20s Mark Reynolds to Mike Schmidt. Not even listerine helps…
The first problem there was the letters ESPN LOL
Why give a single second of your time to ESPN in the first place?
Tv sound off, radio on, always.
I’ll miss the Sheriff of Swattingham. (Orioles thing…)
Was actually cutting down on the K’s and hitting smarter with 2 strike counts en route to his big late season with the Rox. You can’t really call him blind given his propensity to draw walks. Very streaky with the O’s and lost his ability to throw well from 3rd, though I don’t know how well he ever did in the field with AZ; became more than respectable at 1st, though.
That year he hit 44 home runs he became one if my favorite players. Always seemed like teams he was on were greats!
Congrats on a full Career Mark. It seems like the timing is right for this. many may not remember this but Zimmerman played SS while they were both on UVa’s emerging baseball program.
Once the Virus runs it’s course we look forward to your next visit to your old school.
Stay healthy
Stay Happy
Support those who need it
and we will be back to baseball before you know it.
Pretty sure the two of them and the uptons were all on the same team at some point
The guy struck out all the time that the power was almost not worth it.
I enjoy how the announcers now consider .240 a respectable hitter. Soon 300 homers and a career BA of .225 will get you in the HOF.
6.8 bWAR and 10.7 fWAR in 1688 games, or 0.6/1.0 over 162.
Being a 1-tool power-only player is nice work if you can get it. Won’t miss types like this though.
One of the last.. all or nothing players…good dude.. aka Adam Dunn aka Richie Sexton similar styles… good luck!!
Every dh 1b nowadays.
Hit a ball when he played for the tribe that still hasn’t landed… enjoy retirement Mark!
Good for you Mark. Loved playing with you.
Crazy story he was sneaking around with the daughter of the GM in Mobile as a minor leaguer-he went to the GM and asked him if he could marry his daughter-dudes a class act and one of my favorite players