Eric Hosmer announces retirement after 13 MLB seasons

Eric Hosmer announces retirement after 13 MLB seasons

First baseman Eric Hosmer announced his retirement after 13 MLB seasons, he announced Wednesday morning. Hosmer will now be focused on joining sports media, co-founding “MoonBall Media” along with former minor-league teammate Anthony Seratelli. He aims to host his own weekly podcast, “The Diggin’ Deep Podcast,” which will be produced by Seratelli, with former MLB pitcher Peter Moylan and Justin Su’a.

Excited to take on this new challenge, MoonBall Media, and our first project, The Diggin’ Deep Podcast. The playing days are unfortunately over but I’m committed to giving back to the baseball community that helped shaped my life. Episode 1 live now. https://t.co/EjfJjgb5aJ pic.twitter.com/PlcX5h4fXc

— Eric Hosmer (@TheRealHos305) February 21, 2024

“You have to be 110% committed and doing what is necessary both physically and mentally to play at the major league level and I reached a point where I wasn’t there anymore,” Hosmer said, according to the Associated Press. “I’m very satisfied with my career. I feel like I accomplished a lot, was around a lot of great people and have a lot of good stories to tell.”

Hosmer, 34, last played with the Chicago Cubs in 2023, but only appeared in 31 games. He slashed .234/.280/.330 (64 OPS+), the lowest of his career. He spent 2022 with the San Diego Padres and the Boston Red Sox, sporting a 107 OPS+ with 16 doubles, eight home runs and 44 RBIs in 104 combined games.

He spent his first seven seasons with the Kansas City Royals, where he was drafted No. 3 overall in 2008, and the subsequent 4.5 years with the San Diego Padres after signing an eight-year, $144 million deal, which was the largest in the club’s history at the time.

Hosmer was the best version of himself in Kansas City, where he helped lead them to a World Series Title in 2015 alongside Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Perez and the late Yordano Ventura. He also won all four of his gold gloves and earned one All-Star nod (2016) there, in addition to finishing in the top-25 in AL MVP voting twice (2015, 2017). 

For his 13-year career, he slashed .276/.335/.427 (107 OPS+) with 198 home runs, 342 additional extra-base hits, 893 RBIs, 76 stolen bases with a career 8.1 percent walk and 17.7 strikeout rates. He will go down as one of the better defensive first basemen of the mid-2010s and beyond. 

“We’ve always talked about doing something, especially after my players are over,” Hosmer said regarding Seratelli, according to Forbes. “He’s had his feet on the ground for 10-plus years on this side of the business. Now that the playing days are over, I feel like I have so many fun stories that I want to give back, especially these last couple of years of my career when I got to experience the big-time markets, being in Chicago, being in Boston. I think this podcast is something where I can really have enjoyment and dig deep into other people’s processes and how that helped them succeed.

“That insight from a player’s perspective, that’s what I’m really looking forward to because there are some situations where a player wants to really have his own voice to explain a situation, but you really just can’t in the baseball world because players are wired to be tight-lipped and it’s all about the team and all that stuff.

“I’ll have the opportunity to give the fans some insight on my perspective and my experiences on what might be going on. It will be a unique perspective that maybe we’ll be able to give fans a different look and insight.”

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