Former Gold Glove outfielder Josh Reddick has decided to retire from Major League Baseball. The veteran told Mark Berman of Fox 26 and other reporters that he will stop pursuing a MLB career (Twitter link). Reddick announced in May he’d play for the Perth Heat during the 2022-23 Australian Baseball League season that starts in November. After that wraps up, he says, “that’ll be it for me.”
Originally picked by Boston in the 17th round of the 2006 draft, Reddick made his debut for the Red Sox in the July of 2009. He bounced between Boston and Triple-A Pawtucket before being traded to the Oakland A’s during the 2011-12 offseason. Reddick got his first opportunity to start on a MLB roster in 2012 and ran with it, posting a career high 32 home runs and 85 RBIs, earning a Gold Glove, and picking up a few MVP votes to go with it.
Reddick played three more full seasons for Oakland during which he accumulated a .747 OPS over 372 games. At the 2016 trade deadline, he and Rich Hill were flipped to the Dodgers in exchange for a package that included Frankie Montas, where he helped Los Angeles advance to the NLCS. The next offseason, Reddick reached free agency and signed a four-year deal with the Astros worth $52MM, where he made an immediate impact. He slashed .314/.363/.484 in his first season with the Astros, playing a huge role in Houston’s 2017 championship run.
Reddick spent three more full seasons with the Astros before joining the Diamondbacks on a one-year deal for 2021. After Arizona released him in early August, he spent three weeks at the Mets’ Triple-A Syracuse before being released.
In February of 2021, Reddick took his career to Mexico and spent a summer with the Acereros de Monclova, with whom he hit .293 in 28 games. Today, Reddick was on hand for Game 1 of the ALCS in Houston, where he told reporters he was “frustrated, upset” because he feels like he has “plenty of talent to be out there playing (in the majors).” He continued on to say that his time with the Acereros was his last attempt at returning to MLB. Reddick will be one of the biggest names to ever play in the ABL, where he’ll join a Heat team that includes two former MLB pitchers in Zac Reininger and Warwick Saupold.
In over 4879 Major League plate appearances across parts of thirteen big league seasons, Reddick slashed .262/.321/.426. He accumulated 24.7 bWAR, hit 146 home runs, drove in 575 and scored 597 times. He banked north of $66MM in career earnings, according to Baseball Reference. MLBTR congratulates Reddick on his lengthy, successful career and wishes him all the best in his retirement.
Interesting he felt frustrated not getting a deal? He was signed to two minor league deals and it just didn’t work out? Kinda surprised he didn’t get another shot to catch on somewhere, but his major league days were regressing since 2019
It’s a little annoying. He hasn’t shown anything since 2019. Sounds like a bit of entitlement to me. Maybe he’d have enough to be a weak #4, ‘okay #5 OF, but almost everyone can do better.
He had a couple of excellent seasons but looking at his career stat line, I was expecting more. His best stat line though was his career earnings.
Nothing annoys me more than someone believing in themself. The gull
I believe in myself, so I am not sure why the NY Yankees don’t make me their GM?
Joe, if you get the job, can I be your #1, right hand man?
Nothing to do with numbers, everything to do with clubhouse cancering/2017 participant.
Whoa whoa whoa reddick did not help dodgers, reddick was an entitled a hole on the dodgers, period.
So awesome I’ll be able to watch him play one last time here in New Zealand (Auckland has a team part of the Australian league)
He played a significant role for the 2017 Astros. Good riddance.
One of the few guys who didn’t actually use the system (him, Altuve, Kemp).
Sarcasm ?
No, it’s fact.
What about the other teams in the league doing it? They weren’t the first team to do it, they weren’t even the only team doing it in 2017 playoffs. They weren’t the only team doing it that won a ring. Yet, they are the only team that catches a ton of hate and unfortunately people like him and Altuve are unfairly hated.
The Astros are hated and blamed because:
1) The whole organization was in on it from the owner on down.
2) They pushed the use of technology to cheat way beyond what everyone else might have been doing. “They took a gray area in the rules and turned it blood red”.
3) They were caught red-handed with numerous statistical and video evidence.
4) None of the player were held to account for their actions.
5) Most of the people involved showed no remorse and didn’t take any responsibility for their actions. The smugness they showed and the pathetic lies they told were infuriating.
6) They won the World Series and it was clear to any non-biased baseball fan that the cheating made a difference in the outcome.
Their only remorse was that they got caught. When forced to sit at a press conference and “apologize” you could see they didn’t care.
Stealing signs in baseball has been going on since day one but using video enhanced procedures to do it, no not cool.
Why are you gaslighting? The Commissioner’s Report specifically absolved ownership from the sign stealing scandal stating Crane was unaware of it. Also, it’s ok to cheat a little but a team should be ridiculed for cheating more than a little? Let me see those same comments on the Red Sox, Yankees etc.
Nice post!
Gaslighting? Who knows what Crane really knew but it was from top to bottom as to who was aware.
You would not want to apologize for something you were unfairly being made a scape goat for. What they did was wrong, but they weren’t doing anything LA, Boston, or New York wasn’t doing.
Of course, the fact that Bob Crane chairs the committee in charge of setting the Commissioners salary had nothing to do with that! Crane’s name had not even entered the conversation, and for Manfred to open his news conference by absolving Crane just made it seem more likely that the boss man was the driving force in the whole scandal. The Commissioner’s Report – what a joke. Garbage start to finish.
People like to forget about the other teams. To each, their own.
Who knew what Crane knew, but everyone top to bottom was aware
Solid logic that doesn’t contradict itself
Bob Crane was Col Hogan, fam
Move on man is this gonna consume your whole life
Altuve didn’t need to use the trash cans because he was wearing buzzers.
Stupid rumor never proven
I mean good luck crossing out any team Beltran and Cora ever touched, that’s a boat load of teams those cheaters cheated on. But ok
Bobby Thompson knew what pitch Ralph Branca was going to throw. And yet, they remained friends for life. Met them both.
It’s a game. Get over it.
Marwin Gonzalez shouldnt have been getting MLB jobs after 2017 too, especially since he’s so bad.
His only full season with an OPS over .800 was that year and it was 100 points higher than his lifetime OPS. What an amazing coincidence.
I think my last comment was blocked for some reason; if not, I apologize for the false accusation, or for submitting this twice.
Josh Reddick was awesome for us in Oakland. The Spider-Man catch was unworldly, and it was a symptom of his dominance in the field in 2012 and beyond. He always battled at the plate. He always/(twice, 2/2) stopped and signed for my kid. He was friends with some of those crazy creatures in right field, and hosted some at his house for BBQ’s.
Where is the love, Green and Gold?
Careless Whisper walk up come on!!!
Hard to love players who failed in the playoffs for us, just how it is. Reddick was expected to be a heart of the order hitter, and constantly choked in the playoffs.
My take is: Get us a ring or you dont exist. Canseco, Stewart, Rickey, Eck are guys I respect. Reddick I dont.
PED guys (Canseco) you respect? I’m on record as a Sox fan I believe Ortiz was on “something” and should not be in Cooperstown.
U believe with no proof thank god u get no vote. Ortiz deserves every bit of his hof nod.
Canseco isnt in Cooperstown, why are you comping him with Papi? So dumb.
I wish PED’s were legal and only losers care about if players use them or not. We lost 10 years of Ken Griffey Jr’s best baseball due to him not roiding, sick of this crud, I pay to watch the best, not AAAA scrubs playing because the best is hurt, grow up if you disagree.
Not as love as you claim in Oakland. many was tired of his old immature attitude. The guy left oakland and never looked back praising Houston. The guy even claimed not to know anything about their cheating. So no love for him in oakland.
It’s kind of cool he’s living his life and still doing what he loves. Mexico and now Australia, I’m sure those have been some pretty cool experiences. Best of luck in retirement.
The Australian season is only 10-11 weekends. He gets to do some sightseeing around it, and if he has family he gets to take them too.
Ronald Acuña played for Melbourne for half a season the year he was injured in A ball in order to get more reps, and absolutely destroyed the league. Adam Engel also played there as a Braves farmhand. While its primary purpose is to develop Australian talent, overall it comes in at a mix between High A and the Atlantic League, with a smattering of AAA and ex-MLB guys. There is also an all-Korean team based out of Geelong.
That’s a wrap, time to put the career retrospective in the can.
Hopefully he’s playing when the Heat come to Sydney, I’ll try get out there and catch some games
This guy should have a trash can banging good time post playing career. Hope he doesn’t talk a lot of trash.
Lame get a life
Lol
Beltran took all the cans with him to the Yankees this year, doubt he will be joining the yankees haha
I appreciate trashcan joke people because they make it very clear what their sense of humor is. No ambiguity, just the same joke on repeat for the rest of their lives
No trash talking here please.
Having played in Mexico, Australia, and with the Savannah Bananas, sounds like a full baseball career.
Long career best of wishes.
He was always a stand up guy, he made time for kids back during his AAA career, and was fun to watch his career in MLB
No he was not always a stand up guy. It’s nice that he was kind to the kids ; but knowing that peoples lives and livelihoods are being impacted by cheating and keeping quiet is not “stand up” how many pitchers lost money or careers because of the cheating he , at a minimum , allowed.
Did the Astros cheating personally offend you or something? As someone else said before, the Astros weren’t the only cheaters or the only team that won the WS while cheating. Just because Josh Reddick allowed others on his team to cheat or even if he cheated himself it still doesn’t overshadow the positive impact he left on the game and its fans. Best of luck to Mr. Reddick in all of his post-baseball endeavors and hope he wins MVP in the ABL.
Affected people’s livelihoods and lost careers? Let’s tone down the drama and have a bit of perspective here. You’re acting like he was accessory to a violent crime not the beneficiary of banging a trash can to get a hit. What happened was against the rules but I have yet to hear about a pitcher losing their career over it.
Why would you hear it? Another example going back in years is when Canseco used PEDS and won the AL MVP. Many years later Mike Greenwell felt the award should have been retroactively given to him since he placed second in the voting.
tampabay.com/sports/rays/2020/02/16/impact-of-astr…
usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2…
Only problem was during Canseco years it was not outlawed. Its like going back and changing awards because the laws changed. there are many players that did steroids when it was legal. Ball players used to used speed to get hyped up for games.
We wouldn’t hear about it because it’s a hyperbolic, nonsense assertion. You’ve also made a ridiculous comparison. Also Mike Greenwell’s career was hardly over after not winning an MVP award.
@jagonza
lastwordonsports.com/baseball/2021/03/19/ex-pitche…
So a journeyman 33 year old pitcher with a career ERA of 4.92 drafted in the 15th round barely hanging onto a spot in the majors being on his third team at the time tried to sue and got the case dismissed because it lacked merit is your evidence of careers being ruined?
So banging the cans nullified all the charities and families he’s helped
Career year was the year the astros “admitted” to cheating – all that needs to be said.
Ah yes, “the year”…should be “decade, that we are still in”….
Josh retires with 10.130 years MLB service, which earns him a full pension. Congratulations Josh!
Players are often the last to know and accept that it’s over.
Sheesh, what a big offensive campaign in 2017, Cheater
Hmm got worse after stopped using garbage cans.
Good luck Josh!
Reddick hit .167 in the World Series, doesn’t look like the garbage can helped him much. A good player who besides that had a fine career
It is hard to be a fan when he was on the cheating team and bashed the Dodgers and fans in his comments. You get what you sew, I think that is the saying.
“You reap what you sow.” (not sew)
Good riddance. Don’t come back to the US.
So disgusting to say man get off your high horse
He played a game for the Savannah Bananas last year so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he ended up playing with them once he’s done. He’s from the Savannah area so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for him.
Unfortunately if Josh still had plenty of talent to be out there he would be. Unfortunately 30 teams around MLB apparently don’t see it.
Reddick and Brandon Moss are two guys the Sox gave up on that went to Oakland and immediately put it all together, i wonder how their careers would have gone had they gotten more of a chance. Anyway, good luck down under and happy retirement Josh
Interesting the only year he hit .300 was 2017
At least he defeated the necromongers.
People think “sign-stealing” WAS or IS widespread with numerous teams? Do you people have any idea the sophistication needed to pull something off like that? “Codebreaker” as they called it…..That was a proprietary motion capture software/AI that was so advanced that it somehow deciphered the pitch and sent it to the trash banger all within one or two quick seconds…That is next level Artificial Intelligence. It would be incredibly proprietary and EXTREMELY doubtful another team could duplicate it….This couldn’t have POSSIBLY been widespread UNLESS this code breaking A.I. software was being shared….Something that proprietary would NEVER be shared….
You don’t even know the the facts. Codebreaker wasn’t illegal. Codebreaker was an excel spreadsheet. Every team in the league that has an analytical dept had a version of Codebreaker.
What they did that broke the rules wasn’t sophisticated at all. It was a camera in CF relayed in real time a room by the dugout. That was 100% league wide.
Jjd002, You are a supreme idiot. You have no idea what you are talking about. Merely a camera in CF???? Get TF out of here! The effing software was DECIPHERING/CRACKING PITCHES AND SEQUENCES!! You have to be the purest idiot I have come across on this site. Congrats to you. Please go consume arsenic or ricin.
Complete moron. You know nothing about how the pitches were being cracked!!! Not even a faint clue!!!
Hated to see him leave the Red Sox back in the day, but he’s had a solid MLB career. Baseball in Australia is entertaining. Former MLBer Delmon Young is there playing DH and has been on the mound, too. I bet Reddick has a fun time in the ABL.
Best season was in 2017 by far. Hmmmm
Easily the best left handed hitter in Oakland A history
Better than Reggie? No. Must be sarcasm.
good overall player but he was terrible during playoffs.