After 19 seasons, Torii Hunter has decided to call it quits on his MLB career. The 40-year-old outfielder announced Monday he will officially retire.
Hunter spent the past year with the Minnesota Twins, with whom he debuted in 1997 and played his first 11 years in the majors. He spoke with the Star Tribune's La Velle E. Neal III about his decision to walk away from the game:
I'm sad because it's all I've known for half of my life. This great game of baseball has done so much for me. I have learned a lot of lessons. They say baseball is life and life is baseball, and I used baseball and applied it to my life. So I got through a lot of hardships and a lot of hard times and I learned from them and I made adjustments, which you have to do in the game of baseball as well as the game of life. So baseball taught me a lot. But mentally, I think it's time. I still love the game, but time has taken a toll on me mentally and physically.
Twins manager Paul Molitor commented on Hunter's decision via a text message, per Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN in Minnesota:
In 139 games this past season, Hunter hit 22 home runs and had 81 runs batted in, both of which were second on the team. As Hardball Talk's Aaron Gleeman noted, the power numbers belie what was an otherwise poor offensive campaign from Hunter:
Of course, the numbers don't illustrate his full impact on the team, particularly on the Twins' young outfielders, 26-year-old Aaron Hicks and 21-year-old Byron Buxton.
"He's applying a lot of things that we talked about. He's applying it to his career," Hunter said of Hicks, per MLB.com's Betsy Helfand. "He's playing the game the right way, having great at-bats. I always thought he had a pretty good eye but he's starting to be a little more aggressive in those counts where you need to be aggressive, two balls no strikes, 3-1 count."
In March, Buxton discussed how he was looking to Hunter for guidance.
"I've told him, 'Give me any advice. If you see something wrong, tell me and I'll make an adjustment,'" the promising outfielder said, per Fox Sports North's Tyler Mason. "That's what he's doing. I'm just trying to make an adjustment to improve my game and put it in my game to make myself better."
Although Hunter's second stint in Minnesota was short-lived, it could have a long-term impact as Buxton and Hicks progress on the field.
Hunter also spoke Monday about how pleased he was to conclude his playing days with the Twins, per Neal III:
It meant the world to me. This is where it all started. Molly [Paul Molitor] was the manager. It was the perfect scenario to come back and finish my career with the Twins, possibly get to the postseason. The perfect scenario would be to win the World Series with those guys this year. We fell short, but we did have a winning season and there were a lot of positives that came out.
Now that he's officially done as a player, the strength of Hunter's Hall of Fame credentials will inevitably be discussed. He is a five-time All-Star, a two-time Silver Slugger Award winner and a nine-time Gold Glove winner.
While those accolades are impressive, Baseball-Reference.com put Hunter among a class of very good but not great players in terms of similarity score:
Among those players listed above, only Ron Santo is a Hall of Famer. Carlos Beltran should also get there once he retires, but it's a mostly nondescript group.
In addition, Jay Jaffe's JAWS metric, which attempts to measure a player's case for the Hall of Fame, lists Hunter as the 31st-best center fielder in MLB history.
Seven players ranked below Hunter are enshrined in Cooperstown, New York, but all of the players were of different eras. Three played around the turn of the 20th century, and the other four were active through the 1930s and/or 1940s; Hall of Fame voting has changed quite a bit over the generations.
In a previous era, when advanced statistics didn't have such a prominent role in evaluating a player's career, Hunter might have done enough to get into the Hall of Fame. Today, however, the chances he attains baseball's highest individual honor are slim.
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