Evan Longoria suited up for just the third organization of his career in 2023 when he signed with the D-backs and helped the club make an improbable run to the World Series. He hasn’t signed a new contract since then but also hasn’t formally filed any retirement paperwork. The longtime Rays and Giants third baseman, however, told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times and others this past weekend that he’s all but officially retired.
“I waited long enough to know that I was done,” Longoria said before detailing some of the physical toll his 16-year playing career took during his final seasons. “…And then, being able to go to the World Series, have the experience that I had, it made it a pretty easy decision for me going into the offseason.”
Longoria did leave the door for one final run ever so slightly cracked. The 38-year-old said it would “depend on what team” called him and their chances of reaching a postseason. He listed both the Rays and D-backs as clubs he’d at least consider if he got the itch to take one more chance at winning a World Series.
“One of the only things I haven’t accomplished is winning a World Series,” said Longoria. “So if you said I would go hit .080 for the rest of the season, but the team would win the World Series, then I’d go do it. But that’s probably about the only thing I’d want to do.”
It’s a candid and broad-reaching interview that fans of Longoria and his former clubs, in particular, will want to check out in full. Some of the many topics touched on include how no Ray has worn his iconic No. 3 since he was traded, the slugger’s thoughts on a potential new stadium for the Rays, his life at home now that he’s been able to focus on being a full-time dad, and his hope to eventually return to the game in some capacity.
If Longoria is indeed done as a player, he’ll wrap up an outstanding career with a .264/.333/.471 batting line. He played in parts of 16 big league seasons, garnering MVP votes in six of them. Longoria made three All-Star teams, was named American League Rookie of the Year, won three Gold Gloves and took home one Silver Slugger Award.
Longoria piled up 1930 hits, including 431 doubles, 26 triples and 342 home runs, tying him with Hall of Famer Ron Santo for 104th on the all-time home run leaderboard. Those 431 doubles currently rank 142nd all-time. The former No. 3 overall pick also scored 1017 runs and knocked in 1159 (the latter ranking 185th all-time). FanGraphs credits Longoria with a hefty 55.2 wins above replacement. Baseball-Reference is even more bullish at 58.6 WAR. He earned more than $150MM in salary over the course of his 16 years in the big leagues. Along the way, he carved out a reputation as an excellent and beloved teammate.
“Longo is one of the best teammates I’ve ever had,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt told the AP’s Mark Didtler. “This guy’s a pro’s pro. This guy’s the epitome of what a professional baseball player looks like. Evan Longoria is everything that’s good about our game, and what a wonderful career he had.”
I refuse to retire!
(Except I have been retired)
Remember when someone stole his AK47 pattern rifle from the house he was renting during spring training in 2011?
The heck with Evan, where is Eva Longoria, she’s never in a slump, she’s always hot
Congrats Mr. Ray
Great career. Enjoy your retirement.
Great career. If he could sign a one-day contract to retire as an Oriole I would be elated!
I would hate that as a baseball fan. Only team he should sign a 1-day contact with is a team that he played with. Specifically the Rays since he was the first true franchise player for the org. Signing a 1-day contact with a division rival would be spitting in the Rays face when the mutual respect between the Rays and Longo has always been positive even after he went to the Giants.
Oh honey… his Cooperstown plaque will have him wearing an Orioles hat whether you like it or not
This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read, why tf would he do that
To achieve GOAT status one must become an Oriole. Sorry honey, I don’t make the rules!
I get where he’s at and certainly applaud his impressive career, but I’m not sure the Rays or Dbacks will be calling an almost 39 year old if they’re making a WS push.
I presume his no. 3 was taken out of circulation when he was traded from Tampa and will be retired soon (if that wasn’t already made official by the team.)
One of the players you wanted on your team
@brandons-3
I agree I’ve followed longo’s career back when he first came up and always wanted my cards to swing a trade for him. Hope he enjoys retirement and the next chapter whatever it may be he’s definitely earned it
The Rays do not play in Tampa norcare they called the “Tampa Bay Rays.” Fact!!!!
Giants and Jets dont even play in the state of New York, let alone the city.
Who cares?
The facts always matter. They Rays have NEVER played a regular season game in Tampa. Different city, different county, and different are code. Other than those 3 relevant facts you have no facts Einstein.
@charels
Can say the same about the Braves, “different city and county”
Los Angeles Angels are about 30 miles away from LA proper and in a completely different county, too.
The Rays did in fact play 3 regular season games at Disney World.
They’ll always be the California Angels to me.
When they move to the new stadium the team will be called “The Saint Petersburg Peters”
How about the St Petersburg Peter Bergs?
@charels
No
One
Cares
The facts ALWAYS matter unless you’re a snowflake.
Retired number for 3 all star appearances? He was a good player but not great and never lived up to the hype.
Retired number for his commitment to the Tampa Bay Area, community work, his dedication to the fans and the crazy amount of contract discounts he took to stay here. You probably had to have been here to understand it. I’d be shocked if his number isn’t retired. Especially since it’s Tampa. The team hasn’t had many icons or player careers to celebrate.
He’s a top 25 all time 3B. Any time you can make it into the top 25 at your position in a sport with 150+ years of history you lived up to the hype. Longo was a great player and had a great career.
He’s 19th in WAR among 3rd baseman but will be 21st once Machado and Arenado pass him.
He ranks 211st in WAR among all time leaders. He is a fringe HoFer but is definitely a first ballot Hall of Very Good. He might get in on personality. Similar to McCutchen.
No need to retire, just go play for some lower league and enjoy the time just playing the game you love. You’ve made the big money so why not just play for the love of the game? There are teams in the American Association that could use you and that’s more of a AA-league.
Old York: Or, he could play for the White Sox. They’re at the AAA-AA level.
The one salient fact that ecasoes you is that the Braves actually played regular season games in AtlantA, whereas the rhe Rays have never played a regular season gsme in Tampa and the Rays have NEVER been called the “Tampa Rays.’
Dodgers should sign him and ditch Biggio. Watching him in the playoffs last season, the glove still plays and the bat, well it couldn’t be worse than what they’ve gotten from 3B so far. Plus veteran leadership, seems like a win-win.
I don’t know how you draft Evan Longoria at #3 while Kershaw and Scherzer were still on the board, but whatever.
Were you born with such advanced foresight or did you grow into it?
I’m sorry did someone say first ballot HOF? absolutely silly talk. Fringe HOF in my opinion and disrespectful to prior first ballot guys. Congrats on a great career but anyone thinking he’s a lock for the hall is playing the “if he wasn’t injured so much” card. Well he was he missed a lot of time and doesn’t get “what if” points. If averaging 70 RBI a season is HOF we’ve entirely diluted the HOF to the point of irrelevence.
I see one poster below saying welcome to the “Hall of Very Good” and then references to other HOFers (Rice, Baines, etc.) I don’t see anybody saying Longo is HOF material… then again I don’t see the obvious trolls and whatever nonsense they post.
Scroll more it’s there I just read it twice in 10 seconds.
Pretty sure Dumpster Theo is crackin’ jokes. I don’t think anybody here is legimately calling Longo a HOFer, but go ahead and ask them! Cheers
I did ask them. It’s the first thing I said in my first post lol
I can’t see that convo. I suggest you’re talking about a mega-troll because they wouldn’t be blocked by me otherwise. Aloha!
At least they didn’t draft Brad Lincoln or Greg Reynolds with their WAR hovering around 0
the rays did a hell of a good job drafting longo first ballot hall of very good player franchise face
He was Ryan Zimmerman of the rays
As good a career that Longoria accomplished the fact of the matter is that Buster Posey was STILL available when Longoria was drafted.
Mike Piazza was taken in the 3,452nd round.
Posey has a lot less WAR then Evan
Poseys war per season was slightly ahead of Evan’s
roids
I got drafted before Piazza?!?! Whoopee! (Put me on the IL, I just strained my arm patting myself on the back!)
At the time, Longoria might have looked like the best player available. No one knows how a player is going to pan out. Happens all the time.
62nd!!
Best position player in that draft, most teams did worse. Giants Lincecum was a good pick too for his early years.
The 2006 draft was just a great draft for pitchers period.
“I don’t know how you draft”
You could’ve just stopped there.
Good read. There’s gotta be other vets out there looking for work as well. If so, worth an MLBTR Top 10 list story?
C Yards: Maybe those vets should get together and become one of the expansion teams that’s unfortunately coming.
Great career, too bad so many injuries, without that he would have been hof.
Agreed.
A fine career, almost 60 bWAR and 148 million in the bag. Dude can hang them up if he wants to and go down as one of the greatest players the Rays ever had.
See you in the Hall of Very Good Longo! A very fine career and easy to root for.
I mean they did let Jim Rice in the HOF…
And Harold Baines.
But not schilling, odd?
To his credit Harold Baines was an absolute beast in Sports Talk Baseball on Sega Genesis
Hopefully Dwight Evans and Fred Lynn next.
Fred McGriff finally got his due, hopefully more players that deserve to be inducted get in.
Go ahead and retire and prepare to join Harold Baines in the HOF.
Great career and great guy but I’ll take Eva Longoria over him every day, all day.
My only complaint about Tito in his 8 years was allowing Beckett to pitch to Longoria in G2 of the 2008 ALCS.
I wonder if he still has a few ABs left in that bat.
Can’t blame Tito. He had Beckett pitch to Longoria figuring Eva would take a few pitches and not swing. Turns out he wasn’t waiting for a fastball, he was waiting for Godot
Didn’t he also hit the game winning hr in game 162 in 2011?
If he’s tied with the whiny Ron Santos Eva Lomgoria should be a contender himself for the Hall of Fame, and not have to wait so long. Hip hip on a fine career
Does he have to officially retire to get his pension?
Yes
Nice quote by Vogt so why don’t the Guardians sign him so he can chase a ring? He’d be considered an upgrade for their crummy offense anyway.
What kind of a state is that? It’s like saying “l’m not dead but not alive either.”
Why would I want a guy that knelt for the National Anthem? Pass.
Both of the Ken Griffey Jr baseball games on Super Nintendo were so great. Loved how the N64 one had MLB rosters.
But he didn’t sing it while he was sh!tfaced drunk like that redneck prior to the home run derby.
So a ton of stats within the top 200 players of all time, but probably not a HOF’er to many. Odd.
He was better than “Hall of Famer” Scott Rolen if he only managed to stay a little healthier at the end.
Not even close. Rolen laps him. If you’re going to give Longo the “if he’d stayed healthy” bump then you have to acknowledge Rolen played with last third of his career with a bad shoulder. If Rolen had been healthier he’s a top 5 all time 3B instead of just top 10. Longo was a good player but not on Rolen’s level. Longo was barely top 25 all time at 3B.
Longoria surely knows how close he is to the Hall of Fame. To stop now, he really must be cooked—to the point where even a competitive beast like a longtime pro athlete on the verge of his sport’s highest honor knows he’s cooked.
He looked like a shoo-in as of age 33, with 55.0 bWAR, and coming off a 2.4 WAR season with good defense. He also had 3 years left on his SF deal, meaning he’d get every chance to keep piling up numbers. .
2023 was a nearly average if unimpressive season. Must have been a brutal offseason for him to all but definitively halt. his career. That ‘if I hit .080’ remark doesn’t help his case, though. It’s ‘as long as I win a ring I don’t care if I hurt whatever club I’m on.’ Ugh.
In the end he just doesn’t have a HOFer’s resume. The ROY award was about as good as it got. Just 3 GGs, low for a HOFer; only one MVP vote better than 10th when he came in a distant 6th in 2013. Like pretty much every player his fielding peaked in his early 20s and in his case dropped off radically to merely good after age 25.
Still, he’s 18th by JAWs at 3B—but it’s hard to see him getting in when Craig Nettles, Sal Bando, Ken Boyer, Buddy Bell, Dick Allen, and Darrell Evans are out, unless he gets that mysterious ‘nice guy’ dispensation from writers.