Veteran left-hander Randy Choate, who spent part of the 2016 season in the minor league ranks with the Dodgers and last appeared in the Majors in 2015, tells WFAN’s Sweeny Murti that he has decided to retire. Choate didn’t receive any solid offers to continue playing in 2017, Murti writes, and the 41-year-old southpaw simply said that he “figured it was kind of time to move on.”
Originally a fifth-round draft pick by the Yankees back in 1997, Choate epitomized the “LOOGY” (left-handed one out guy) role and embraced his role as a specialist, he tells Murti: “In the seventh inning with two outs and men on first and second or bases loaded, and you’ve got to get out David Ortiz? Those are crucial moments, and there’s very little room for a mistake.”
Because of his specialized role, Choate never boasted a significant workload in terms of innings pitched. His career-high was 50 2/3 frames in a single season, though he did twice top 80 appearances in a season. Choate led the American League with 85 appearances in 2010 and led the National League with 80 appearances two years later, though in a testament to the limited nature of his role he logged just 44 2/3 innings and 38 2/3 innings, respectively, in those two campaigns.
That said, the Florida State product was unequivocally one of the best when it came to retiring same-handed opponents. In his career, Choate faced 1036 left-handed opponents and held them to a putrid .195/.276/.274 batting line with just 10 homers.
Overall, Choate’s career will come to a close with a 16-14 record, a 3.90 ERA, 112 holds and a 348-to-175 K/BB ratio in 408 regular-season innings. He earned more than $13MM during his career, per Baseball-Reference.com. And beyond his regular-season work, Choate was fortunate enough to have pitched in the postseason on five occasions in his career. He was a member of the 2000 Yankees that won a World Series Championship. He reminisces fondly about the time spent playing alongside icons Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in his interview: “…when you get down to the end, you just realize how great the beginning was.”
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
GL Randy! Enjoy your family.
Well said = )
Seems like this guy pitched for 30 years. Enjoy the retirement.
Best LOOGY ever
Javier Lopez
Yeah I’d say Javi too, but regardless, MLB lost two great LOOGY’s this offseason.
You know Cassandra, from this height, you could really hawk a LOOGY on someone.
And of course the classic baseball movie, “LOOGY of the Year.”
Kind of telling how he wrote “I was in the era of the ‘loogy’ and able to take advantage of that.” being that MLB is all about finding ways to hurry up the game – I can totally see Manfred installing a rule in the near future stating all relief pitchers must throw to at least 2 or 3 hitters unless injured, and if they leave the game with injury after 1 hitter then they must go on the DL after the game.
I wouldn’t mind this, no offense to Choate’s career but no one remembers loogy’s other than the fact they have that funny-looking nickname.
No chance. Unless the offense has to declare their lineup before an inning. Being a LOOGY is no different than hitters that can only hit well off of only one LHP or RHP.
What he meant by “era of the loogy” was teams are starting to not value them as much. It’s hard to get enough quality innings out of your bullpen over the course of the season. It’s even harder when you have a guy that’s only going to face one or two batters a game.
People always remember dominance regardless of purpose on a team. Saying nobody remembers LOOGYs is like saying nobody remembers pinch hitters. They remember them if they are great at it. I am sure many people remember Lenny Harris, esp if they are old enough to have watched baseball back in the late 80s and early 90s.
Respect to all loogys. They make the game more strategical so makes the game of baseball harder for the opponent.
I used him as a starter in MVP Baseball 2005. He was a beast.
That was my favorite baseball video game of all time, so much better than the crappy RBI baseball reboot that’s out now
It’s awesome. Every game since is all eye candy.
Lol…classic….there’s so many pitchers over the year I did that too….I even made randy Johnson closer for two years when he got up there in age and overall ratings kept dropping
I’m talking the show and 2k baseball
oh the Chode
30 decisions in 672 games is definitely a LOOGY. Good luck to Randy.
Choate pitched in 945 games in his career with a total of 14.2 IP.
Lol
Great pitcher. Enjoy your life Randy Choate.
Remember this guy giving some really tough times to batters when he was with the Rays in particular. Hope the retirement goes well, never a guy a lefty wanted to see up in the pen before their at bat.