“Happy not to play baseball” 21 saves…sudden retirement at 34, sniping at owners?
The closer, who had 21 saves this year, suddenly retired at the age of 34. At his age and performance, he has plenty of years left in him, but he hung up his jersey in style. It’s also interesting that he took a shot at his team’s owner in retirement.
Oakland Athletics pitcher Trevor May, 34, announced his retirement from active duty on July 17. According to local media, including MLB.com, May announced on his internet platform that day, “I am officially retiring from professional baseball. I will no longer play baseball. I’m happy.”
Selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the fourth round, 136th overall, in the 2008 draft, the right-handed pitcher made his major league debut with the Minnesota Twins in 2014 and played until 2020. He spent 2021-2022 with the New York Mets and this year with Oakland, totaling nine seasons with three teams.
In 358 career games (26 starts-450⅓ innings), he is 36-28 with a 4.24 ERA, 33 saves, 67 holds, and 520 strikeouts. Tommy John surgery sidelined him for all of 2017, putting his career in jeopardy, but he bounced back in 2019 with a career-best season in Minnesota, going 5-3 with a 2.94 ERA, 17 saves and 79 strikeouts in 65 games (64⅓ innings).
This year, he joined Oakland as a free agent on a one-year, $7 million deal, earning his first closer’s job. He was solid in 49 games (46⅔ innings), 온라인카지노 going 4-4 with a 3.28 ERA, 21 saves, one hold, and 40 strikeouts, but he was mentally drained by a mid-April trip to the disabled list with anxiety that cost him a month. The introduction of the pitch clock, which requires him to throw pitches at a set time, also amplified his anxiety.
“I want to retire on my terms,” May said. “Most players retire because they decide they can’t play anymore. It’s a terrible thing to watch yourself slowly decline while fighting for professional reasons when there are so many other things you can enjoy,” he said, adding that he would rather do something more enjoyable than play baseball.
And it has something to do with baseball. While the physicality of the game is exhausting, and there’s a lot of pressure to perform, he still enjoys talking about and teaching the game. “I like to talk about pitching,” Mei said. I love teaching people about baseball. I think I could start my own show about baseball because I love baseball. Even though I’m retiring, it doesn’t mean my relationship with baseball is over. If anything, I’ll be doing more baseball-related things.” In addition to her personal show, she plans to do radio play-by-play commentary in the near future.
Although it’s been an emotionally difficult year, May has nothing but affection for his last stop in Oakland: “I made meaningful connections with my teammates and fans in Oakland this year. I feel like I got everything I wanted and more,” he said. “I loved everybody in the clubhouse. I love the Oakland organization. It’s been awesome.”
He’s said enough for now. May didn’t hold back on the colorful language, calling for Oakland owner John Fisher to “sell the team” and saying, “The team should be owned by someone who takes pride in owning it.”
Oakland, which has finished in last place in the American League West for the past two years with a triple-digit winning percentage, is notoriously one of the most underinvested teams in the majors. Owner Fisher, who bought the team in 2005, has spent nothing on the roster or infrastructure. Increasingly, he sold off star players before they hit free agency. The Coliseum, the team’s home stadium, hadn’t been properly remodeled since 1968 and was leaking. The team also raised ticket prices, angering fans.
Fed up, Oakland fans took collective action in June with a “reverse boycott” and packed the stadium. They wore green T-shirts emblazoned with the words “SELL” to express their frustration with Fisher and demand that the club be sold. Undeterred by the protests against the move, Fisher purchased a new stadium site near the Las Vegas Strip in April of this year with the intention of moving the team to Las Vegas in 2027. The administrative process for the new 30,000-seat retractable dome stadium has been finalized, and Major League Baseball is in the process of approving the move.