Former St. Louis Cardinals All Star and World Series champion Allen Craig has retired from baseball, and is joining the San Diego Padres front office.
It would be understandable if people had forgotten that Allen Craig was still playing. He has not appeared in the majors since 2015, struggling for two seasons before being designated for assignment and sent to the minors. Craig did not exactly impress in the minors to force his way back to the major leagues.
After spending last year in the San Diego Padres system, Craig has decided to retire. He will remain with the Padres, where he will serve as an advisor to their baseball ops department.
Allen Craig will join the Padres' front office as an advisor to baseball ops, thus ending his playing career. In 6 big league season, he batted .276/.333/.435. He won the '11 WS, was an All-Star in '13 and is the only player to score a WS game-winning run on an obstruction call.
— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) April 12, 2019
There was a time when Craig seemed to be a star in the making. He had signed a five year extension with the St. Louis Cardinals prior to the 2013 season, guaranteeing him $31 million. That deal appeared to be extremely team friendly, especially since he had a three year run from 2011 through 2013 where he produced a .312/.364/.500 batting line, hitting 46 homers and 79 doubles. Craig was part of the Cardinals World Series winning team in 2011, and made the All Star Game in 2013.
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However, that extension soon became a nightmare. After suffering a Lisfranc injury late in the 2013 season, his production plummeted. A trade to the Red Sox did not help, and after a combined .206/.273/.298 batting line with nine homers and 21 doubles in 593 plate appearances, Craig was designated for assignment.
He did not exactly fare well in the minors either, at least with the Red Sox, although injuries limited him to 169 games from 2015 through 2017. Last season, in the Padres organization, Craig finally showed some signs of life, with a .293/.375/.479 batting line, hitting 13 homers and 18 doubles in 363 plate appearances.
Nonetheness, that production was not enough to entice another team to give him an opportunity to make a comeback to the majors. Instead, Craig’s career is over, at least in terms of being a baseball player. With that, he serves as a warning against automatically assuming any extension is a team friendly deal, because injury or decreased production for other reasons can make those deals go south quickly.
Allen Craig is set to join the San Diego Padres front office. He will be remembered for his time with the St. Louis Cardinals, and how he is a warning that even the most team friendly extension can go awry.