D-backs' Eric Chavez announces his retirement
17-year Major Leaguer was 6-time Gold Glove ® winner
PHOENIX - Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) infielder Eric Chavez announced his retirement following a distinguished 17-year Major League career.
Chavez, 36, was a 6-time American League Rawlings Gold Glove Award ® winner at third base from 2001-06 as well as the 2002 American League Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger Award ® at third base. In 2002, he was named to The Sporting News AL All-Star Team and finished 14th in AL MVP voting, the first of 4 Top-30 AL MVP finishes.
His career .970 fielding percentage at third base is tied for third best all-time (min. 800 games) with Ken Reitz behind Mike Lowell (.974) and Brooks Robinson (.971), while his 6 Gold Gloves at third base are tied for fourth with Buddy Bell and Robin Ventura behind Brooks Robinson (16), Mike Schmidt (10) and Scott Rolen (7).
Among active third basemen entering today's games (stats only at third), he ranked fourth in games (1,403), hits (1,367), doubles (290), triples (23), home runs (244) and walks (586), fifth in RBI (833), tied for sixth in slugging percentage (.482), seventh in OPS (.828), ninth in on-base percentage (.346) and 10th in average (.271).
His teams won 6 Division Titles (4 AL West championships with the Oakland Athletics [2000, '02, '03 and '06] and 2 AL East championships with the New York Yankees [2011, '12]), were a Wild-Card qualifier once (A's in 2001) and advanced to the ALCS in 2006 and 2012. He played in 34 games over 9 series in his 7 trips to the Postseason.
The left-handed hitting infielder spent 13 seasons with the Athletics from 1998-2010, 2 seasons with the Yankees from 2011-12 and 2 seasons with the D-backs from 2013-14. In 1,615 career regular-season games, he hit .268 (1,477-for-5,518) with 816 runs scored, 318 doubles, 24 triples, 260 home runs and 902 RBI. He owns a career .818 OPS with .342 on-base and .475 slugging percentages. Defensively, he appeared in 1,402 games at third base, 21 at first base, 5 at shortstop and 2 in left field.
Chavez spent 2 seasons in the Minors in 1997-98 and in 1998 was named the Baseball America and Topps' Minor League Player of the Year after hitting a combined .327 (173-for-529) with 45 doubles, 33 home runs and 126 RBI in 135 games with Double-A Huntsville and Triple-A Edmonton. He was the Athletics' first-round selection and 10th overall pick in the 1996 First-Year Player Draft out of Mount Carmel High School (San Diego, Calif.), where he was a 2-time Baseball America High School All-American.