Kyle Seager retirement takes wild card option off Yankees’ board

Well … (clears throat) … it’s now painfully obvious that Kyle Seager would not have been a fit to play third base and float across the infield for 120 games for the 2022 New York Yankees.

But there was at least a few weeks there where it seemed like an interesting dark horse option for a team that could use both additional power, improved defense, and a veteran presence who might just love to hook balls to the short porch for a year or two to build up his counting numbers. Something akin to, say, 2011-12 Eric Chavez, who — would you look at that — recently joined the Yankees’ coaching staff to play a Swiss Army knife role.

Add in the fact that his brother Corey seemed likely to be playing short for the Yankees for the foreseeable future, and yeah, you could talk yourself into trading Gio Urshela, slotting an alternating Seager and DJ LeMahieu in at third and trying to capture lightning in a bottle.

Unfortunately, things all went up in smoke fairly quickly.

First, Corey chose a mega-deal with the Texas Rangers. Then, just as we were trying to figure out whether a brother reunion in Dallas was a done deal and whether we could still consider Seager as a slugging DH/roving infield option in the Bronx, he hit us with this Wednesday statement, sent through his wife.

Instead of reentering the free agent pool at the age of 34 (an age he turned after the 2021 season, if you want to feel old), Seager has called it a career.

Possible Yankees target Kyle Seager has retired.

Seager has decided to leave on his own terms after setting career-highs in both homers (35) and RBI (101) last season, though he sold out for power just a bit during Seattle’s magical season — and who could really blame him?

Still an above-average hitter and serious power threat, Seager has instead chosen to hang ’em up as a lifetime Mariner, something we know wouldn’t have been possible after the team essentially removed themselves preemptively from his free agent market.

As it turned out, the tall tale of a “cold email with no contact” wasn’t exactly true, but the Mariners still declared they’d be moving on quite loudly. Seager, using the power given to him, decided that wouldn’t really be the case.

Sure, he would no longer be an active Mariner. But he wouldn’t be anything else, either. A modern baseball rarity.

A Yankees-Kyle Seager pairing was an imperfect fit, especially once the Bombers couldn’t offer a familial reunion in the Bronx. His regressive strikeout rate and escalating age didn’t paint a perfect and irresistible picture, either.

We were at least mildly intrigued by the potential porch jobs, though, and will have to instead wish Seager well in his self-imposed retirement.

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