Chris Perez retires

Former Indians closer Chris Perez has retired from baseball. This actually happened a few days ago, but no one took notice. The only mention of it appears to be this entry on the International League’s transactions page from four days ago:

He was in the Orioles organization, but he couldn’t even pitch anyway given that he had a 50-game suspension for a drug of abuse to serve that wouldn’t have ended until next month.

Maybe the retirement holds, maybe it doesn’t. Manny Ramirez retired when faced with a drug suspension but then came back and saw the suspension reduced. Precedent is set, right? Take a year or so off, get back in shape and try to latch on someplace else.

Maybe, however, Perez just wants to move on from baseball and into whatever else it is interests him in life. Which, based on his disciplinary and legal history of the past couple of years seems to be marijuana, but hey, whatever you want to do man.

When baseball was his thing he was pretty good at it for a while. He was an All-Star closer for the Indians in 2011 and 2012, saving 36 and 39 games in those years, respectively. But since then he has a 4.31 ERA with 46 walks in 100 innings. He was arrested in 2013, along with his wife, after having a package of marijuana delivered in their dog’s name. Then this suspension. He has bounced from the Indians to the Dodgers to the Brewers and now to the Orioles organization before hanging it up.

Hang loose, Chris. Go be you wherever you want to be.


(hardballtalk.com)