John Jaso considering retirement, sailing off into the sunset

After nine years in the major leagues with four different teams, John Jaso is pondering retirement life on a sailboat.

It always tough for a baseball player to know when to hang up his spikes. For most of us, we have to give up our favorite sport as teenagers, maybe after Little League or middle school or high school. In fact, it’s usually not so much we give it up as the game tells us it’s time to go when we are no longer good enough to play at the next level.

For a major league player, there is no higher level. They’ve reached the top of the pyramid, the apex of their sport. Once they get there, they want to stay there. Most players remain in the game as long as they can. Many play on well past the glory years and leave the game when a team no longer wants them.

John Jason wouldn’t seem to be at that point yet. He appeared in 126 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates this year and hit .211/.328/.402. He was versatile enough to play three positions. When he didn’t start, he came off the bench to pinch-hit 58 times with a .379 on-base percentage. Among the 35 pinch-hitters with 30 or more plate appearances, Jaso ranked eighth, with an above-average 117 wRC+ (17 percent better than an average hitter when league and ballpark effects are taken into account).

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He’ll be a free agent as soon as the World Series is over, but rather than look to sign with a new team Jaso may fully embrace the “free” part of free agency. As reported by Elizabeth Bloom of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jaso spoke about his future after a recent Pirates game. He said, “Honestly, this is probably it for me, as far as baseball goes . . . I can’t really tell you what the future holds or whatever. But if I left now, it would be a really good feeling to leave right now, if I did.”

Jaso said he enjoyed the last two years with the Pirates, which was the fourth team he’s played for in a nine-year career that started with the Tampa Bay Rays and had stops in Seattle and Oakland. With the Pirates, he was easily recognizable on the field by the long dreadlocks that fell from under his baseball cap. He looks like he would be very much at home sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere.

Soon enough, that might be exactly what he’s doing. If he does retire, he plans to hop on a sailboat and travel the seas. “I have a sailboat, so I just want to sail away. If you live on a sailboat, it’s really hard to live complicated. You have to keep things simple, so that’s kind of my catalyst and everything, and my ride and my home.”

Before he heads off on his boat, Jaso is likely to continue the aid to Puerto Rico that the Pittsburgh Pirates started. The team announced over the weekend that they would be accepting donations from 6 am to 6 pm on Monday and Tuesday at the Bill Mazeroski statue at PNC Park. Fittingly, the statue is located near Roberto Clemente Bridge, named after the longtime Pirates player who died while flying supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on December 31, 1972.

Players, both former and current, along with the team’s coaches and other staff, will be among those accepting donations at PNC Park. The supplies will be flown to Puerto Rica via charted plane later this week. Anyone who donates will receive a Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente jersey.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Along with his plans to travel, Jaso said he would like to help the people of Puerto Rico rebuild after the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. He worked in construction with his uncle and would like to do what he can to help. He’ll coordinate with the team’s third base coach, Joey Cora, and Mike Gonzalez, who is the team’s special assistant to the general manager for cultural initiatives. Cora and Gonzalez are leading the team’s effort to provide help to the people of Puerto Rico.

If this is the end of his baseball career, Jaso’s retirement won’t make big headlines. He isn’t a household name among baseball fans around the country. He never made an All-Star team, didn’t win any major awards, and never had a single season with more than 500 plate appearances.

He came up to the big leagues as a catcher after being drafted in the 12^th round in 2003 out of Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California. After a series of concussions, he had to move out from behind the plate to first base and, this year, to the outfield. His best asset as a hitter is his ability to get on base.

Jaso is a platoon player, a left-handed hitter with almost 90 percent of his career plate appearances against right-handed pitchers. While he hasn’t hit lefties much at all, he’s effective against righties. Among the 180 hitters with 2000 or more plate appearances against right-handed pitchers since 2010, Jaso ranks 43^rd with a 122 wRC+. That puts him right there with Carlos Beltran and Carlos Santana against righties over the last eight years.

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For his career, Jaso has 9.3 Wins Above Replacement (FanGraphs WAR), the same as Reed Johnson, Nick Esasky, and Scott Podsednik. Like Jaso, these are not big names, but they were all useful big leaguers at one time or another, which is something most of us can only dream about. Kind of like hopping on a boat and sailing off into the sunset.