Former major league infielder Sean Kazmar Jr. is retiring from professional baseball, according to an announcement from the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate in Gwinnett. The 37-year-old appeared in seventeen minor league seasons, the last eight of which came in the Atlanta system.
Kazmar was the prototypical organizational veteran, remarkably going more than a decade in between big league appearances. He broke into the majors in August 2008, not long after his 24th birthday. He made nineteen appearances with the Padres down the stretch that season, then spent the entire 2009-19 campaigns in Triple-A. Kazmar first joined the Braves’ organization in 2013 and played with Gwinnett exclusively through 2019, not appearing in 2020 because of the canceled minor league season.
That perseverance eventually paid off, as Kazmar made it back to the big leagues this past season. The Braves selected his contract in mid-April, although his second and final major league stint proved brief. Kazmar got into three games, making two plate appearances, before being outrighted off the 40-man roster. He spent the final few months of the season back with the Stripers.
Kazmar’s major league career consists of just 48 plate appearances, in which time he managed eight hits and five walks. Merely playing at the professional level for seventeen seasons is itself quite the accomplishment, though. And Kazmar’s return to the majors — however brief — was one of the better stories of the first few months of the season, no doubt made sweeter by the team’s eventual World Series win.
Cheers Scott!
Wow I’m an idiot, I saw Kazmar and read kazmir. Sorry cheers to SEAN.
No biggie.
Rock the Casbah!
Great minds think alike… and so do we!
@tstats
I read the same thing. Sean Kasmar, Scott Kazmir… potato, potahto
It wouldn’t be the first time this site posted an article titled “Scott Kazmir Retires.” I think it’s already happened twice and we’ll likely get a third one pretty soon.
The sad thing is when I first saw the title I said to my self “don’t write Scott don’t write Scott”
Tstats: No, it is Sean. Not to be confused with Scott Kazmir, who is a pitcher, not an infielder.
He played on the team, that means he’ll get a ring. Seems like a great way to go out imo.
Is that true? I had heard that it was up to the front office and they usually let players vote on it. Way cool if they only vote on post season money and anyone who played one game during regular season gets a ring, but somehow I doubt that. But I am just guessing, I have not searched the internet or anything. In any event, interesting thought.
I think that generally speaking, if you play 1 game for a championship team, you get a ring. However, I do believe it is up to the team. I think that Kazmar’s life story would make it hard for Atlanta to deny him.
I do remember that the Mets denied Rickey Henderson a 2000 NL Champion (not World Series winning) ring because “he played in the postseason for a different team.” That would be the Seattle Mariners. That seems bizarre as every year we get stories of players guaranteed to get a WS ring because they played for both WS teams. Rickey Henderson was a pain in the butt for the Mets which probably led them to deny him. It’s not like he can take them to court. Lol.
All that said: Carl Edward Jr. played one game for the Braves this year, he pitched one third of an inning, gave up 3 runs for an ERA of 81.00. Is he getting a ring for his “contributions”? I guess. He also won with the Cubs in 2016.
They give rings to front office staff, so playing one game for the actual team is a guaranteed ring. The organ player for the Capitals lives up the street from my MIL and he shows off his ring to everyone.
Also I wanted to just say the phrase “Sucks to your Kazmar!”; couldn’t work it into a good joke without being offensive for no reason lol
The team gets to vote if non-full time players get a share of the extra playoff bonus pool (they can award partial shares) but they don’t decide who gets a ring or not. The ring decision is 100% decided on by the front office. It would be a classy move by Atlanta to give Kazmar a ring and even more classy of the players to award him with a full playoff share as well. Players like Kazmar are invaluable to organizations as they help educate/push the talented prospects to the majors even at the detriment of their own career. This guy is a real life, Crash Davis. I hope he gets both a ring and a full playoff share as an acknowledgement of his impact on the organization.
Playing seventeen minor league seasons and finishing it off with a World Series is so awesome.
If he played well and was rostered in the playoffs it would probably be made into a movie. Not a good movie, but a movie nonetheless. Maybe it could be called ‘Rock the Kazmar’.
Gwinnett legend
Who? Who is this?
A man who made it WAY farther in professional baseball than most of us.
I can’t imagine most would have followed this, but it was a nice story middle of the year when ATL was able to promote him – a 36-year old in the twilight of his career – for a brief appearance after not having seen MLB play since 2008. His wife and young children were on-hand to see his brief appearance that was a reward for his resilience. Baseball is a fickle game, and to know that someone managed to survive for that long, and get a brief taste of what he was after for so long, especially having stuck through it at 35 y/o and minimal support during a Covid-lost year, is remarkable. His story may not get re-told via Disney (Devil Ray Jim Morris in THE ROOKIE) or become a legend like Moonlight Graham (Burt Lancaster’s character in FIELD OF DREAMS), but it’s part of what makes the game great.
13 seasons between plate appearances at the MLB level. Good for you Sean.
If he is single, it was more fun than a day job. If he had kids, the bus travel would be a grind. Either way, he played a long time in the minors and hit 0.257, which means he was pretty talented.
Who?
The article answers that question well enough
Real life Crash Davis. I hope he manages a team some day.
Probably will, if he wants to. These days, you’re not going to get anybody who made real money (and now, that means you played 1 year in the majors) to take bus rides in Peoria. It’s the Kazmar-s who wind up coaching/managing.
Small sample size, but I saw him a few times in AAA, and he was one who was always talking it up in the dugout, yacking with this coach or that one. The kind of guy who’s interested, I would think.
How many of us baseball fans would give their left testicle to have had Sean’s baseball career??
Sign me up!!
Idk, right is fine, but left might be off limits.
left always hurts worse.
..thought it said ‘Scott’. Was surprisingly surprised.
Hopefully the braves will give him a ring !!! My guess is yes he was part of the team .
Everyone who plays at least one game gets a ring. It’s not a decision the Braves make, it’s guaranteed.
The decision the Braves players and coaches make is how much of the World Series 30 million dollar players share he will get.
Last year the Dodgers gave out 61 full shares to players and coaches (almost $400,000 each) and 14 partial shares to front office workers.
Who? (Noticed someone beat me to it)
Reading must be hard for you. But the athletic or answers the question.
Talk about a real life Crash Davis
And if you ask who, you are not a baseball fan!!!!
And I am willing to bet he did the same thing while toiling in the minors, by mentoring and helping to build those around him, even if it wasn’t obvious or direct.
Kazmar gets a World Series ring! Awesome way to retire! Congrats!
Had a chance to meet him when he played for the Buffalo Bisons in AAA. Unfortunate that he didn’t get to spend more time in the majors but he definitely has a future as a coach in some capacity.
Congratulations and Good luck, Sean!
If the Mets call you about a job in New York, say “no”.
At first glance I thought I saw Scott Kazmir retires lol.
That should be soon enough though.
Poorest Mans Crash Davis! Career .257 minor-league avg with 107 HR’s in over 1,700 games played and 6,200+ at-bats (.682 OPS) Funny thing is, after just 48 Major-league Plate appearances during his career, baseball reference had him ‘projected’ to get 201 plate appearance in 2022! smh lol
Got some Guilder Rodriguez vibes reading this. Congrats to Sean on making all those years in the minors pay off for one last trip to the show.
True grit and determination for the dream. Glad to see the braves buy him a cup of coffee this year. It would of been nice to see him join Bubba Starling on team USA in Tokyo Japan
Dang I thought I followed baseball pretty closely but this name did not ring a bell whatsoever. l
Dude must know all the back roads of Gwinnett pretty well by now. Which Taco Bell is open till 2am, etc.
See you in Cooperstown Sean. Well deserved!
Tickets are $29.95
You must work the ticket booth. You two can talk about what bus rides are like