Longtime big-league first baseman Eric Hosmer announced his retirement from the Majors on Wednesday, bringing an end to a polarizing but nonetheless impressive 13-year career. Hosmer also announced that he’ll be shifting his focus to a new podcast venture he’s launched called MoonBall Media.
Hosmer, 34, spent 31 games with the Chicago Cubs last season before being released in May. That stretch, as it turns out, will mark the end of a 13-year career that saw him bat .276/.335/.427 (107 OPS+) with 198 home runs and an estimated 18.6 Wins Above Replacement, per Baseball Reference.
A high school star in Florida, the Kansas City Royals made Hosmer the third overall pick in the 2008 MLB Draft. After mashing his way through the Minors, he arrived in the Majors later in 2011, teaming up with fellow top prospects Mike Moustakas, Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez to form one of the best farm systems in recent memory. Slowly but surely, that group helped turn around a Royals franchise that had been stuck in neutral for years: a winning record in 2013 (the team’s first in a decade) followed by a Cinderella run to the AL pennant in 2014 and a World Series title in 2015.
Hosmer had his fingerprints all over that championship. He wasn’t the most talented member of Kansas City’s young core, but he was arguably its heart and soul — the first player out of the dugout to congratulate a teammate, the guy who set the tone for everyone else. If you want a tidy summation of the player Hosmer was in his prime, just go right to the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series against the Mets, where Hosmer’s baserunning heroics brought home the tying run in a game the Royals would eventually win in extras.
Hosmer never quite lived up to his prospect hype, but he became a very solid big-league first baseman, earning four Gold Gloves, a Silver Slugger Award and an All-Star nod over seven years with the Royals. He peaked in 2017, slashing .318/.385/.498 (133 OPS+) with 25 homers and earning down-ballot MVP consideration. He parlayed that career year into a lucrative free-agent deal with the San Diego Padres, who hoped that he’d help usher in a new era of competitiveness the same way he had in Kansas City.
Hosmer never came close to replicating that banner year, however, save for an impressive 38-game run in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. He was just a league-average bat over four-plus years in San Diego, eventually being shipped to Boston at the 2022 trade deadline as part of the team’s effort to make room for Juan Soto.
