Veteran infielder Steve Pearce is officially hanging up his spikes, he tells WEEI’s Mike Mutnansky (writeup via Rob Bradford). He was not currently under contract with any MLB organization.
Pearce, who turned 37 yesterday, had already indicated he was unlikely to resume his playing career. Though he kept the door open late last year, he has now put to rest any possibility of a surprise return.
Last year turned out to be an injury-ruined disappointment — hardly the only time that Pearce’s body has betrayed him over the years. He managed to appear in 13 campaigns and achieve a full decade of MLB service in spite of his many health woes, but was limited to 2,555 plate appearances over that span.
Now that he has formally wrapped up his playing career, we can put a final wrap on it. Pearce owns a cumulative .254/.332/.440 batting line with 91 home runs. He appeared with seven organizations at the game’s highest level: the Pirates, Orioles, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Rays, Yankees, and Astros.
Pearce will be remembered most for his surprising breakout years in Baltimore and his brief but notable late run in Boston. He entered his age-30 season with a completely unremarkable record in the majors. He ended up making virtually his entire contribution at the game’s highest level over the ensuing six-year stretch (2013-18), over which he recorded a .266/.347/.479 slash (123 OPS+).
After moving to the Red Sox at the 2018 deadline, Pearce delivered a monster effort down the stretch before a three-homer showing in the 2018 World Series that earned him the MVP award for the series. In his recent comments, Pearce rejected the notion that the 2018 Red Sox benefited from illicit sign-stealing efforts — a matter that still remains unresolved by league investigation, at least publicly.
DarkSide830
i do hope the Red Sox thing doesn’t hang over Pearce. i like the guy and what he did off the bench for a while.
lilpartialbaldo
Nobody could hit a lefty like Pearce. NOBODY!
Maurice Lock
You’re telling all of us nobody had a BETTER BA of .263 with an OPS of .838 against lefties than Pearce? Really? Exaggerate much?
jd396
Relax
rocky7
Relax? He didn’t make that over the top comment about Pearce…
jr.white
Nobody beats Town Fair Tire! NO-BODY!
JamesDaltOn
Jack Clark, former Giant and Cardinal and Red Sox and Yankee. He could hit lefties better. 300 .440 .533 Lifetime. The “Ripper” destroyed lefties.
Rsox
“The last m************ to rob the Sox this bad Was Jack Clark”
Dom2
*2018 WS Champ
qbass187
I assume that * is reserved for “butt hurt fans of loser franchises looking for excuses why their team isn’t good enough”?
Maurice Lock
Every team cheats one way or another.
pinstripes17
*No other team cheats like the Astros and Red Sox did
Maurice Lock
Cardinals. They only had a guy go to prison, but let’s just ignore that since it didn’t happen yesterday.
4WSsince04
Giambi on steroids…Clemens on steroids … Yankee cheats….stick your comment
Baseballallday
We obviously have to wait for the report because right now it’s all rumors. However, if the Red Sox are guilty it’s a little ridiculous to compare that to steroids. Especially when the Sox have so many steroid abusers themselves (for example Clemons played for the Red Sox before the Yankees, manny, ortiz, not mention Chavis is actively on the team). I don’t think the Yankees are in anyway innocent here but a few individual players taking steroids which we know for a fact is occurring on every team is dramatically different than an organization wide cheating scandal involving illegal use of technology. I thought Astros fans sounded dumb making this argument and Red Sox fans haven’t made it any better.
Manfredsajoke
Well the Yankees have been full of PED cheats. That definitely qualifies for me. They all cheat. Neither the Astros or Red Sox are my favorite team, I’m just tired of hearing this stuff. If a person didn’t know better if he just read the comments on this site they’d think the Astros and Red Sox were the only teams in the last couple decades to “cheat” in anyway possible. I don’t buy that for a minute. To me PED usage has been far more harmful to MLB in recent memory than anything else.
miltpappas
Not to mention A-Rod, Pettite and (in all likelihood) Stanton.
rocky7
Big Papi, Manny, and who knows who else on your team…don’t throw stones Dude when your team and many, many other teams have scores of players guilty of the same….
rocky7
Well, they cheated in a way that was banned by MLB and got caught doing it….there is a difference when you take those Yankee hating glasses off.
Baseballallday
But we have proof of individual steroid users on every team. We have no indication of anybody cheating on the scale of the Astros. Hard to comment on the Red Sox since we don’t have the report yet but I personally reject this notion that “every team was doing it.” We have no evidence of that the way we do with steroids. And again I’m talking about the team, not individual players. I’m not endorsing the use of steroids or saying the Yankees were clean, I just can’t figure out how a few players choosing to use steroids in anyway equates to using a camera to know what pitch is coming. The scales are night and day different. If you want to say every TEAM is cheating that’s fine but give me examples with proof.
brucenewton
Red Sox weren’t banging on trash cans or the like. That was Beltran’s deal.
colelovesthenats121
No
troll
hey jeff todd, need to write an article about glenn beckertt? passed away a few days ago
cubfanforever
I’m stunned that there has been no mention of Glenn Bechert’s’ passing on this site.
baji kimran
I’m even more stunned nobody can spell his name right.
leefieux
That would be great! And, I am not even a Cubs fan.
pasha2k
No player wants to retire under those circumstances, n I’ll always remember him in the WS being the MVP he was. It’s too bad things n body fell apart last yr. I wish him the best n he’ll always be in RS nations heart, well this one anyways!
nats3256
this dude played for the entire AL east!
bcjd
IIRC, he’s the only player in history to have played for every team in a single division.
Rsox
Steve Finley played for the entire NL West.
baji kimran
Pearce had a pair of walkoff slams in the same week for Toronto in the span of 4 days at the end of July in 2017. The second one capped a 7 run ninth inning that saw Toronto stun the Angels 11-10.
mmeans12
i remember this. bud norris also gave up two walkoff grand slams that week.
DarkSide830
certainly was a heck of a stretch
Backup Catcher to the Backup Catcher
I recall Pearce when he was a Pirate, seemingly going up and down from the majors to AAA relentlessly. Bucs never really gave him a shot. Happy he ended up having a pretty solid MLB career after the Bucs let him go.
LLGiants64
He had his time in the majors and under the sun. It is good for baseball to see a player with “working man’s” stats carry of a World Series MVP trophy. Makes all of us dream a little more.
cdr9er
Underrated comment
Maurice Lock
Career WAR of 10. Career earnings of $29M. He was over compensated. Good for him.
DarkSide830
and you felt a need to say this why?
thebaseballfanatic
In 2017, when I was 10, my family went to a Jays game in June. Since it was close to my birthday, my mom told me that I could pick out any player’s jersey from Jays Shop. I thought long and hard, and eventually decided upon Steve Pearce, my favourite player on the Jays. When we reached the front of the waiting line we were told that they didn’t actually have any Steve Pearce jerseys in stock. So they custom-made the Steve Pearce #28 jersey and I wore it to the game.
This was before the walk-off grand slams, before the World Series MVP with the Red Sox, he was just some journeyman without pedigree or a big career moment. I just liked him for some reason.
I still keep that jersey in my closet to this very day and wear it to every Jays game I go to.
Boston2AZ
Great story! They custom made the jersey for the kid. Think any team shop in the US would have done that? I don’t. Just think – they made a baseball fan for life and didn’t even have to change the game or build an amusement park in the stadium to do it.
Rsox
Pearce had a nice championship run with Sox. Congrats on a decent career