MLB: Top Ten Greatest Final Seasons

Ted Williams

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Ted Williams spent all 19 of his big league seasons with the Boston Red Sox, and despite missing three years due to service in World War II, is among the game’s all-time greats. He hung up his spikes at the age of 41 in 1960 despite showing that he still had few equals with a bat in his hands.

Williams slashed .316/.451/.645 in 113 games for the BoSox that year, hitting 29 home runs and driving in 72 runs. That was good for an OPS of 1.096, an OPS+ of 190, and a 3.0 bWAR. That it came on the heels of the only season in which he failed to hit .300, have an OPS over 1.000, and a negative bWAR makes it that much more impressive.

Teddy Ballgame once said it was his goal in life to “walk down the street [and have] folks say ‘there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.’” After a career that saw Williams lead the American League in batting average six times, home runs four times, and RBIs four times, being the last man to hit .400, and twice winning the Triple Crown, he is definitely near the top of the list in that regard. And he went out in perhaps the only way he could, hitting his 521st home run in his final career at-bat.

Next: Early retirement.

Kirby Puckett

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One of unfortunately a few truly sad entrants on this list, the late Kirby Puckett was forced to retire just before the 1996 season due to vision loss in his right eye as a result of occlusion of a retinal blood vessel. At the time, he was hitting .344 in the Grapefruit League.

Thus, despite being only his 12th big league season, 1995 was also his last, and Puckett had a good one. He slashed .314/.379/.515 in 137 games for the Minnesota Twins, hitting 39 doubles, 23 home runs, and collecting 99 RBIs. An all-star for the 10th consecutive year, he posted a 130 OPS+ and 3.1 bWAR.

Puckett had just turned 36 two weeks before the vision loss, and given his 1995 performance, it’s reasonable to assume that he had a few productive years left in him. His career ended with 2,304 hits, making it likely he would have reached the vaunted 3,000 hits mark were it not for his unfortunate medical issues. He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, elected in 2001, and passed away on March 6, 2006 after a massive hemorrhagic stroke.

Next: The original Hammerin’ Hank.

Hank Greenberg 

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Much like Williams, Greenberg’s career was interrupted by four years of military service during World War II, and like Puckett, he was forced to retire due to a physical ailment despite seeming to have a few years left in the tank.

Greenberg played 11 seasons for the Detroit Tigers, but his final year in 1947 was spent as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. While he batted just .249 that season for the Bucs, he hit 25 homers, drove in 74 runs, led the league with 104 walks, and posted an OPS of .885. That was good for a 131 OPS+ and 3.2 bWAR for the man who was referred to as “Hammerin’ Hank” before Henry Aaron was old enough to pick up a bat.

Three times Greenberg led the league in home runs, including his monster 58-homer season in 1938, twice was AL MVP, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1956. Nagging elbow injuries caused him to retire, but didn’t take him away from baseball, as he served as farm system director, general manager, and part of owner of the Cleveland Indians and general manager and part owner of the Chicago White Sox along with the legendary Bill Veeck.

Next: Chasing the home run king.

Barry Bonds

Despite talk of PEDs, asterisks, and generally being an unpleasant person, Barry Bonds had a historic final season in 2007 at the age of 43. Capping off a 22-year career with more home runs than anyone that has ever played the game, he showed how much opposing pitchers still feared him.

Bonds hit .276 in ‘07, bombed 28 home runs, and drove in 66 for a San Francisco Giants team that was in its first season with Bruce Bochy at the helm. In addition to the solo home run on August 7th off the Washington Nationals’ Mike Bacsik that pushed him ahead of Aaron on the all-time list, Bonds led the league with 132 walks and a .480 on-base percentage in his final season, earning a 169 OPS+ and 3.4 bWAR.

Now the hitting coach for the Miami Marlins, Bonds retired not only with the home run crown, but a 298/.444/.607 career slash line, 601 doubles, 1,996 RBIs, and a 162.4 bWAR that trails only Babe Ruth, Cy Young, and Walter Johnson. While the debate over his Hall of Fame candidacy and place in the annals of the game will surely continue to be debated throughout the baseball world, there is no disputing the pure scorebook-stuffing he was capable of.

Next: Here's to you, Mr. Robinson.

Jackie Robinson

There is very little that can be said about Jackie Robinson’s historic career that has not already been covered by smarter, more articulate, more insightful folks than this author, but suffice it to say, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ legend still had tremendous value when he decided to walk away from the game.

Robinson slashed .275/.382/.412 in 1956, adding 15 doubles, 10 home runs, 43 RBIs, and 12 stolen bases, and was worth 4.5 bWAR. That Dodgers club lost to the New York Yankees in the World Series in seven games, including Don Larsen’s perfect game in game five. Robinson went 0-for-3 in that one, and 0-for-3 with a walk in the last game of his career.

1956 was just Robinson’s 10th season in MLB, though he had also served in World War II, played professional football for the Los Angeles Bulldogs of the Pacific Coast Football League, and spent one season apiece with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League and the Montreal Royals of the Triple-A International League. At the age of 37, complications from diabetes and wavering interest in playing or managing led to his retirement and becoming an executive with the Chock full o’ Nuts coffee company.

Next: More tragedy.

Roberto Clemente

Another truly sad-making entry on the list, Clemente died tragically on December 31, 1972 when an airplane he had chartered to take relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff in Puerto Rico.

The 1972 season had been Clemente’s 18th in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform, and he proved to be just as capable with a bat as ever, slashing .312/.356/.479 with 19 doubles, 7 triples, 10 home runs, and 60 RBIs. He won his 12th consecutive Gold Glove award and made his 12th career all-star appearance, posting a 138 OPS+ and 4.8 bWAR for a Bucs squad that lost to the Cincinnati Reds in the NLCS.

On September 30, 1972, Clemente smacked a double off Jon Matlack of the New York Mets at Three Rivers Stadium. It was his final regular season hit and gave him exactly 3,000 for his career.

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted on March 30, 1973 to waive the Hall of Fame waiting period, and he was posthumously elected with 92 percent of the vote. Today, he is the namesake of the Roberto Clemente Award, given annually to the MLB player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team.”

Next: A black mark.

Eddie Cicotte

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The first pitcher on this list, Cicotte won 208 games in his 14-year career, and is known as one of the greatest knuckleballers to ever take the mound. He is also known, unfortunately, as a member of the 1919 Black Sox who conspired to throw the World Series, and he was given a lifetime ban from the game by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1921.

Cicotte won 29 games for the White Sox in 1919 before the World Series scandal, and followed that up with an incredibly solid 1920. The right-hander went 21-10 with a 3.26 ERA in 303.1 innings of work, helping the Sox to a 96-58 record and runner-up finish in the AL to eventual the World Series champion Cleveland Indians, and putting up a 5.2 bWAR.

The Black Sox scandal taints what was a very good career for Cicotte, who twice lead the league in wins and had a no-hitter to his credit. He was 36 when he last pitched, and had won 20 or more games in three of his previous four seasons, suggesting that he had a few years left in his career.

Next: Beware of Moose.

Mike Mussina

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Mike Mussina is that rare player who chose the terms of his retirement. There was no injury, no precipitous drop in performance, and no tragedy when he hung it up following the 2008 season. While there is great debate about his Hall of Fame credentials, there is no denying he left the game on top.

The 2008 New York Yankees finished in third place in the AL East, but it was not because of Mussina. The right-hander, who was 39 years old at the time, went 20-9 with a 3.37 ERA in 34 starts covering 200.1 innings. He won his seventh Gold Glove award, had an ERA+ of 131, and posted a 5.2 bWAR that was second only to Alex Rodriguez on the team.

Over the span of his career, Mussina went 270-153 with a 3.68 ERA and 82.7 bWAR, and his Gray Ink, Hall of Fame Monitor, Hall of Fame Standards, and JAWS ratings are consistent with a player that should be in Cooperstown. Still he was only on 43 percent of Hall of Fame ballots in 2016, far below the 75 percent required for election.

Next: No shoes, no baseball.

Joe Jackson

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Perhaps the most famous player implicated in the Black Sox scandal was Joe Jackson, who was just 33 years old when he played his final big league game. Given the same lifetime ban from the game by Landis that Cicotte did, Shoeless Joe spent the rest of his life proclaiming his innocence, but never played in another MLB game.

In 1920, he was as good as he’d ever been, slashing .382/.444/.589 with 218 total hits, 42 doubles, a league-leading 20 triples, 12 homers, and 121 RBIs. Those stats were good for an OPS of 1.033, and OPS+ of 172, and a 7.6 bWAR.

After Connie Mack and the Philadelphia Athletics gave up on Jackson and traded him to the Cleveland Naps, he set a rookie record for hitting that still stands today with the .408 mark he put up in 1911. Though he missed most of the 1918 season working in a shipyard as part of the World War I effort, he had amassed 1,772 hits in what amounted to nine full big league seasons.

In 2015, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred denied a formal petition by the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum to have his name removed from the ineligible list despite having been there for nearly a century.

Next: Going out on top.

Sandy Koufax

Few players in the history of MLB have endured more pain or performed more brilliantly in their final season as Sandy Koufax did in 1966. Traumatic arthritis in his pitching elbow that after one spring training game in 1965 left his entire left arm black and blue from hemorrhaging, forced him to rely upon Empirin with codeine for pain, Butazolidin for inflammation, and a capsaicin-based Capsolin ointment called “atomic balm” to take the ball every fourth day.

Before finally heeding the advice of Dodgers’ team physician Robert Kerlan and giving up the game, Koufax put together one final, masterful season on the mound in 1966 that included league-leading marks of 27 wins, 27 complete games, 323 innings, five shutouts, 317 strikeouts, and a 1.73 ERA. He also led baseball with a 2.07 FIP, a 190 ERA+, and a 9.8 bWAR, leading Los Angeles to the National League pennant and a trip to the World Series.

Next: Five MLB Teams That Should Be Buyers At The Trade Deadline

Though the Dodgers were swept by Frank Robinson and the Baltimore Orioles in the Fall Classic that year, Koufax’s accomplishments in 1966 cannot be dimmed. He was an all-star for the sixth consecutive time, won his second straight Cy Young award, the third of his career, and finished runner-up to Clemente for NL MVP honors. Koufax was enshrined in Cooperstown in 1972, and it is possible that baseball will never see a swan song season as dominating ever again.