Longtime Baltimore Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts announced his retirement from baseball on Friday, per Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun.
"It was just kind of my time," Roberts said. "There were numerous reasons that I felt like I couldn't play at a level that I was accustomed to and wanted to play at if I continued to play. I always said that I wasn't going to be the guy that tried to hang on as long as I could."
Roberts reiterated how special his years in Baltimore were, per MASN's Roch Kubatko:
The 37-year-old spent all but one of his 14 years in Major League Baseball with the Orioles. He was named to two All-Star teams (2005 and 2007). In the mid-2000s, many considered Roberts one of the best offensive second basemen in baseball.
Sporting News' Justin McGuire believes that Roberts may be the best second baseman Baltimore's ever had:
2005 was a particularly strong year for Roberts. He finished with the sixth-highest WAR among offensive players and second-highest among second basemen, according to FanGraphs. He had 18 home runs, 73 runs batted in, 27 stolen bases and a slash line of .314/.387/.515.
Injuries and age had their way with Roberts for the last five years. He appeared in a total of 283 regular-season games from 2010-2014. During his last year with the New York Yankees, Roberts batted .237 with five homers and 21 RBI.
According to Baseball-Reference.com, he walks away having posted the 16th-best career WAR (28.9) in Orioles history among position players. His 1,327 games played are also 14th in franchise history.
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