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Ricky Romero Announces Retirement

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Left-handed hurler Ricky Romero recently announced his retirement in an Instagram post that flew under our radar at the time. He hangs up his spikes at 34 years of age.

At one point, the former sixth-overall draft pick looked to be among the game’s better young pitchers — a quality rotation piece who could handle a big innings load, even if not an ace. But his career spun out in surprisingly quick and conclusive fashion, and he was never able to get it going again.

Upon breaking into the majors in 2009, Romero turned in a string of productive seasons, improving his bottom-line results as he went. He inked a $30.1MM extension in the midst of the 2010 campaign, a significant contract that nevertheless seemed destined to be a good one for the organization after the ensuing campaign.

Romero’s third season in the majors was his best — a 225-inning, 2.92 ERA gem in 2011. He earned an All-Star nod and placed tenth in the American League Cy Young voting. Though he was not then and never would be much of a strikeout pitcher, Romero induced loads of grounders (54.7%) and certainly seemed capable of continuing to deliver strong results for years to come.

Unfortunately, disaster struck in 2012. Romero pitched a full season, but that may not have been wise. As he discussed with Vice Sports more recently, he was battling through pain over the course of that season. Romero  ended the year with a 5.77 ERA, an ugly combination of 6.2 K/9 and 5.2 BB/9, and lingering health issues — he ultimately required surgery for matching torn quad tendons — that he never fully recovered from.

As it turned out, Romero would only throw 7 1/3 MLB frames after the end of his age-27 season. The Blue Jays ended up cutting their losses and absorbing the remainder of the money they owed Romero. He ended up landing with the Giants in an effort to find himself, but never managed to gain traction during his three years with the organization. A brief run in the Mexican League also fizzled out.

As the above-linked piece documents, Romero had tried more recently to get on track by engaging a few trusted advisers and trying to get his flow back. Obviously, that attempt did not enable the southpaw to make it back to the major league hill, but it certainly can’t be said that he fell short for a lack of trying. MLBTR wishes Romero the best in his future undertakings.

Shawn Tolleson Announces Retirement

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Former Rangers closer Shawn Tolleson announced his retirement from baseball on Wednesday. The right-hander had previously signed a minor league contract with Texas and planned to head to Major League Spring Training and compete for a job. However, the Rangers’ release today revealed that he’s experienced a setback in his rehab from Tommy John surgery. Said Tolleson in a statement, via the Rangers:

My intention was to compete for a position on the Rangers’ Major League pitching staff in 2019. With that no longer being a possibility, I have decided this is the right time to retire from professional baseball and move on to the next chapter of my life. I want to thank the Texas Rangers organization for all of their assistance in my rehab over the last year. It was a dream come true to pitch for my hometown team for three years, and my family and I will always be grateful for that opportunity.

From 2014-15, Tolleson was a high-quality late-inning option for the Rangers — first as a setup man and then as a closer. Over the course of those two seasons, he worked to a 2.88 ERA with 9.1 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9 in 144 innings — highlighted by a terrific 35-save campaign in 2015 that earned him a 10th-place finish in American League Cy Young voting.

Back injuries limited Tolleson to 36 1/3 innings in 2016, though, during which time he struggled to a 7.68 ERA. Following that rough campaign, he signed on with the Rays but required Tommy John surgery in Spring Training. He’d go on to miss each of the next two season as he recovered.

Tolleson’s career will be far more abbreviated than he or any of his three big league organizations would’ve otherwise hoped, but he’ll nevertheless retire with a lifetime 3.92 ERA, a 14-8 record, 46 saves, 8.8 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 spread across parts of five big league seasons between the Dodgers and his hometown Rangers.

Cubs Hire Craig Breslow As Director Of Strategic Initiatives For Baseball Operations

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The Cubs announced Monday that they’ve named former big league reliever Craig Breslow director of strategic initiatives in their baseball operations department. That, it seems, will put an end to a playing career that dates all the way back to the 2002 season for the 38-year-old Breslow, who spent the 2018 campaign pitching in the Blue Jays’ minor league ranks.

Per the Cubs’ release, Breslow “will help to evaluate and implement data-based processes throughout all facets of Baseball Operations” and will also “support the organization’s pitching infrastructure in Player Development and the major leagues.”

A Yale graduate with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, Breslow has long been heralded as one of the game’s brightest minds. The lefty spent parts of 12 seasons in the Major Leagues, pitching to a combined 3.45 ERA with 442 strikeouts against 226 walks in 570 2/3 innings. That body of work was spread out over seven organizations, including the Red Sox, Twins, Athletics, Indians, D-backs, Padres and Marlins.

Breslow enjoyed what was arguably his most successful season in the big leagues with the Red Sox back in 2013, when he tossed 59 2/3 innings of 1.81 ERA ball for the eventual World Series champions. That season marked Breslow’s lone year of postseason experience, assuredly making the ring he won all the more treasured.

Few, if any, can match Breslow’s combination of education and a playing career that spanned more than a decade and a half, so he’ll being a unique blend of skills and experience to a Cubs front office that is already regarded among the game’s most progressive groups. Best of luck to Breslow in the next chapter of his baseball journey.

Jaime Garcia To Retire

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Veteran left-hander Jaime Garcia is set to formally announce his retirement after spending parts of 10 seasons in the Majors, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB.com. Alex Carrion Velo of El Heraldo de Chihuahua in Mexico first tweeted that Garcia was “expected” to announce his retirement today.

Jaime Garcia | Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Still just 32 years of age, Garcia struggled in 2018 after turning a solid 2017 effort between the Braves, Twins and Yankees. In 82 innings between the Blue Jays and Cubs in 2018, Garcia logged an unsightly 5.82 ERA with a 73-to-44 K/BB ratio in 33 appearances (14 starts).

From 2010-17, however, the left-hander was a quality midrotation piece, primarily for the Cardinals, for whom he played a significant role in a 2011 World Series Championship. Garcia’s 2011 campaign included 194 2/3 innings of 3.56 ERA ball, and he gave the Cardinals a pair of strong starts in the World Series, where he totaled 10 innings and yielded just two earned runs against the Rangers. Despite a long run as a useful big league starter, Garcia never made an All-Star team, though the 2011 World Series ring assuredly more than compensates for that in his eyes.

Overall, the lefty will walk away from the game with a lifetime 70-62 record, a 3.85 ERA in 1135 regular-season innings, 925 strikeouts (7.3 K/9) against 369 walks (2.9 BB/9) and an additional 32 1/3 innings of 3.62 ERA ball from parts of four separate postseason appearances. He earned more than $60MM in player salaries over the course of his time in the big leagues and will long be remembered by Cardinals fans for the eight years and nearly 900 innings of quality production he gave to the St. Louis organization.

Retirement Notes: Tuiasosopo, Amezaga

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The latest retirement news from around the game . . .

  • Per an Atlanta Braves team release, former IF/OF Matt Tuiasosopo has retired and will manage the club’s low-A Rome affiliate next season. Tuiasosopo, 32, appeared in parts of five major league seasons with Seattle, Detroit, and Atlanta, slashing a combined .206/.288/.353 in 404 career plate appearances. The brother of former NFL quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo showed late-career promise in Triple-A with the White Sox and Braves, but decided to call it quits after a poor showing with the New Britain Bees of the independent Atlantic League in 2018.
  • In the same release, the Braves announced that former MLB IF/OF Alfredo Amezaga is no longer playing and will make his “coaching debut” with the organization in a to-be-determined capacity. Amezaga had spent much of 2013-17 in the Mexican League after a decade-long MLB career with four different teams. The 40-year-old slashed a respectable .247/.307/.333 over those ten seasons, starting at least one game at every position on the diamond, save for behind the plate. The Mexican-born Amezaga’s 2004 grand slam, hit in the first game of a decisive, final-weekend series against the Athletics, will live forever in Angel lore. He last appeared stateside for AAA-Albuquerque in 2013 after spending parts of the 2011 season with the Rockies and Marlins.

Retirement/Comeback Notes: Masterson, Wilhelmsen, G. Soto

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A look at the latest official retirement announcements from around the game, plus a potential comeback . . .

  • Pitcher Justin Masterson, 33, is officially retired, per his agent Randy Rowley (Twitter link via Fancred’s Jon Heyman).  Masterson, who came up with the Red Sox, was a rotation stalwart for the Indians over the early part of the decade, posting an excellent 12.3 fWAR from 2010-’13.  The low-slot righty posted some of the league’s highest ground-ball rates over that frame, rarely missing an outing in the process. After a dreadful, walk-marred 2014 campaign, the then-29-year-old never reclaimed his barrel-avoiding touch. The Dodgers took a flier on him prior to the ’17 season, but he struggled in Triple-A Oklahoma City and never did make an appearance for the parent club.
  • Reliever Tom Wilhelmsen announced his retirement on Instagram this morning. Wilhelmsen, 35 on Sunday, was suspended from baseball in 2004 and subsequently quit the game the next season; in 2009, though, he returned to pitch for the Golden (Independent) League’s Tucson Toros and was signed by Seattle the next spring.  He quickly inserted himself into the bullpen mix for the M’s, posting four seasons of a sub-3.35 ERA from 2011-’15.  Command issues often plagued him, though, and he was released by Arizona after a rough start to the 2017 season.
  • 2008 Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto will attempt a comeback next season after sitting out 2018, per agent Paul Kinzer (via MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes on Twitter). Soto, 35, has been mostly a backup option after a rough 2012 with the Cubs and Rangers, though has often acquitted himself well in limited action since.  He last appeared in the majors with the 2017 White Sox, slashing .190/.271/.405 in 48 plate appearances.

Jerome Williams Retires

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Longtime major league hurler Jerome Williams has retired, Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press reports (Twitter links). Williams is now at the Winter Meetings interviewing with teams for a coaching job, according to Fenech.

Now 37, Williams hasn’t suited up for a major league team since 2016, when he threw 17 1/3 innings with the Cardinals. Williams spent parts of the past two seasons pitching in Venezuela, Mexico and with the Somerset Patriots of the independent Atlantic League. However, the right-hander did enjoy a long career in the majors, during which he recorded a 4.59 ERA across 1,029 2/3 innings (236 appearances, 149 starts) and amassed at least 100 frames in seven seasons. Known for sporting a puka shell necklace and a pink glove, Williams nobly used his time in the spotlight to raise awareness for cancer in honor of his mother, who passed away of breast cancer in 2001.

A first-round pick of the Giants in 1999, Williams was their top-ranked prospect twice (in 2000 and ’01) and was also among baseball’s 50 best farmhands three times (2000-02), according to Baseball America. Williams debuted in San Francisco in impressive fashion in 2003, when he put up a stingy 3.30 ERA and totaled 2.0 fWAR over 131 innings and 21 starts, though he wasn’t able to replicate that success over the rest of his career.

After Williams’ effectiveness dipped in his second and third seasons, the Giants traded him (and David Aardsma) to the Cubs in 2005 for reliever LaTroy Hawkins. That was the first in a long line of big league transactions Williams was part of, though it was the only trade involving him. Along with the Giants, Cubs and Cardinals, Williams pitched for the Nationals, Angels, Rangers, Astros and Phillies at baseball’s highest level. The nomadic Williams also took the mound in pro leagues in Puerto Rico, Taiwan and Long Beach, Calif.

MLBTR congratulates Williams on an interesting playing career and wishes him the best in his attempt to join the coaching ranks.

Miguel Montero Retires

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DEC. 10: Montero confirmed Monday that his playing career is over, per Jon Heyman of Fancred. “I’m done,” Montero said.

DEC. 9: Catcher Miguel Montero last took a major league field on April 5, which is likely to go down as his final MLB game. After sitting out nearly all of last season, Montero tells Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic that he’s “pretty much retired,” and has turned his attention to a budding career as an agent. Montero is the CEO of ZT Sports, an agency that features 17 clients, as Piecoro details.

If the 35-year-old Montero is indeed done as a player, his career will conclude with 15.5 fWAR/13.3 rWAR, two All-Star nods, a World Series title and upward of $73.6MM in earnings over 13 seasons. Montero spent the majority of his big league tenure in Arizona, which signed him out of Venezuela for a meager $13,000 in 2001. He debuted with the Diamondbacks in 2006 and later became their primary catcher, a role he held through 2014.

Montero was among the majors’ best backstops during his time in Arizona, where he slashed .264/.342/.421 (100 wRC+) with 97 home runs in 3,430 plate appearances. Defensively, Montero threw out at least 40 percent of would-be base stealers in two of his seasons with the Diamondbacks (2011 and ’12) and generally earned excellent marks behind the plate from Baseball Prospectus.

As a result of the all-around prowess he demonstrated with the Snakes, the team signed Montero to a five-year, $60MM contract extension in 2012. Montero played a significant role in those negotiations, which helped prepare him for becoming an agent, he tells Piecoro.

“I remember we were in Miami,” Montero said. “[Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall] called me and was like, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘I want five years and $60 million.’ He said, ‘Ah, man, we’ve got four for $44 million.’ I was like, ‘I want 5 for 60.’ ‘Is that the number?’ I said, ‘That’s the number. Don’t call me again with five and 59 and a half because I’m not going to take it.’”

While Montero got his desired payday from the Diamondbacks, he didn’t see the deal through in the desert. Instead, Arizona traded Montero to the Cubs prior to the 2015 season for right-handers Zack Godley and Jeferson Mejia. Montero continued to offer respectable offensive production in Chicago, where he batted .242/.342/.395 (99 wRC+) with 27 homers in 799 regular-season plate appearances. His most memorable offensive contribution came against the Dodgers in Game 1 of the 2016 NLCS, in which Montero crushed a pinch-hit, two-out, eighth-inning grand slam off righty Joe Blanton to break a 3-3 tie. Chicago went on to win the game, the NLCS and the World Series in a seven-game masterpiece against the Indians, giving the franchise its first championship in 108 years.

Unfortunately for Montero and the Cubs, his run with the team ended in unceremonious fashion in June 2017. Montero and righty Jake Arrieta combined to allow seven stolen bases in a loss to the Nationals, after which the catcher publicly blamed his battery mate. The Cubs elected to designate Montero for assignment 12 hours later, despite a nice start at the plate that year, with president of baseball operations Theo Epstein telling reporters that the catcher wasn’t “being a good teammate.”

A few days after the Epstein-led Cubs designated Montero, they traded him to the Blue Jays for a minimal return. He ended up recording a disastrous .489 OPS in 101 PAs as a Jay that year. In the wake of his horrific showing in Toronto, Montero settled for a minor league contract with the Nationals last winter. He ultimately appeared in four games as a Nat before they released him April 14.

Reported interest in Montero has been nonexistent since Washington cut ties with him, which has enabled him to pour his efforts into his fledgling agency. MLBTR wishes Montero well in his new venture.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Mike Napoli To Retire

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37-year-old Mike Napoli has announced his retirement on Twitter. Napoli, who’d dealt with significant injuries to his right knee over the last calendar year, had initially planned to give it another go after completing the rehab process, but has decided, “after much thought and consideration,” to call it quits.

Napoli, a 2011 All-Star and 2013 World Series Champion, will long be remembered for his soaring moonshots, magnetic personality and sought-after clubhouse presence, and a preternatural eye at the plate. Napoli’s career spanned 12 major league seasons, during which time he featured prominently on seven playoff teams, three pennant winners, and the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox.

The catcher/first baseman piled up 5,330 plate appearances for four teams during that time, including three stints with the Texas Rangers, for whom his 2011 season (.320/.414/.631, 179 wRC+) was among the best in club history. In all, Napoli appeared in nearly 1400 major league games, slashing .246/.346/.475 with 267 career HR and an offensive output that graded approximately 20% above the league average during that frame. His 25.1 career fWAR is an outstanding mark for a player who never ranked among his organization’s top 10 prospects at any point during his minor league career.

Selected in the 17th round of the 2000 draft out of a high school in Florida, Napoli’s career began with a slow burn in the Anaheim/Los Angeles Angel farm system. By the time he finally reached the majors in 2006, after nearly seven full seasons in the minors, the then-catcher wasted no time making his mark. His 2.5fWAR in just 99 games places him squarely in the pantheon of most impressive seasons in history for a rookie catcher, and his 92 HR while behind the dish is easily tops in club history.

Persistent friction with skipper Mike Scioscia, though, who never quite seemed satisfied with Napoli’s work behind the plate, led the club to move Napoli in a bizarre 2011 swap with the Blue Jays, where the productive backstop was traded with outfielder Juan Rivera in exchange for the aging Vernon Wells, whose four years and $90MM in remaining salary placed him high on the list of least attractive assets in the game. Napoli was quickly shipped to Texas, where in 2011 he established himself as one of the game’s premier hitters; substantial decline followed, though, and the then-first baseman found a new home for the next three seasons in Beantown.

After the championship run of ’13, and a solid follow-up the next season, an aging Napoli sputtered a bit in ’15, and was left searching for a new home prior to the start of the 2016 season. He found it in Cleveland, where a last hurrah – a career-high 34 HR for the pennant-winning Tribe – left him within mere outs of a second ring.

Dodgers Add Chris Gimenez To Coaching Staff

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The Dodgers announced their finalized coaching staff Wednesday, including the hiring of catcher Chris Gimenez as their new “game planning coach.” That appointment, it seems, will bring a 10-year Major League career to a close for Gimenez. The affable backstop split the 2018 season between the Cubs and Twins and finished out the ’18 season as a backup option for Minnesota.

In parts of 10 seasons, Gimenez appeared in 386 Major League games and tallied 1067 plate appearances between the Indians, Twins, Mariners, Rays, Rangers and Cubs. While the bulk of Gimenez’s work came behind the plate, he was versatile enough to spend time at first base, in the outfield corners and, more briefly at third base. Beyond that, Gimenez took the ball for 11 relief appearances in his career — the majority of which came in blowout settings. In all, he was a .218/.307/.344 hitter whose charismatic nature made him a clubhouse favorite virtually anywhere he landed.

As previously reported, the Dodgers’ coaching staff will feature new third-base coach Dino Ebel and first-year hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc. The other new addition to the big league staff will be assistant hitting coach Aaron Bates, who is entering his fifth season with the organization and will be promoted after working as a hitting coach in the minor leagues. Bates, a former first baseman, appeared in five MLB games with the 2009 Red Sox and spent parts of eight seasons playing in the minor leagues as well.

Manager Dave Roberts, bench coach Bob Geren, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, hitting strategist Brant Brown, first base coach George Lombard and bullpen coach Mark Prior will all return to the coaching staff in the same roles they occupied last season.

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