Just two months ago, 35-year-old outfielder Kevin Pillar was sitting in his Scottsdale, Arizona, jobless and cut from baseball’s worst team, the Chicago White Sox.
He didn’t want his nine-year, 10-month career to end like this.
He’s eager to reach the milestone of a 10-year streak, and of course 1,000 career hits would be great too.
Well, when Pillar walked into the visitors’ clubhouse at Wrigley Field on Saturday, balloons, streamers and bottles of wine were waiting for him at his locker.
He went into the 10th anniversary believing it would be the final season of his career.
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Angels general manager Perry Minasian, who was with the team when the Toronto Blue Jays selected Pillar in the 32nd round of the 2011 draft and then took him off waivers this year after Mike Trout had knee surgery, spoke of Pillar’s accomplishments to the team, and Pillar gave a speech afterward.
“Great player, great qualities, makes everyone around him better,” Minasian said. “He’s been there through the good times and the bad times. Every day player, reserve player, platoon player. He’s unbelievable.”
After hitting .160 with the White Sox and wondering if he’d ever play again, who would have thought he’d go on to hit .299 with six home runs and an .867 OPS and surpass the 1,000-hit mark?
After being with nine different organizations since 2019, he now wants to leave on his own terms.
“I’ve watched some of my best friends and teammates who were much better players than me play maybe a year too long,” Pillar told USA Today Sports. “I think it’s kind of cool that people are curious as to why you don’t want to play anymore, rather than just playing really well and getting kicked out of the game.”
“Not everybody gets that chance in this game. I almost missed that chance too. I don’t know what the future holds for me this year, but if I keep doing what I’m doing and have a really good year offensively, it could be something great that makes people want to do it more. It could also be good for people to ask, ‘Why don’t you want to do it anymore or are you going to fade away?'”
Pillar recalls that his former Blue Jays teammate, Jose Bautista, was a six-time All-Star and one of the American League’s most feared hitters (he twice led the league in home runs) before bouncing around in his final season and becoming unwanted.
“Some people have had impressions of him going from team to team and not being the fearsome hitter that he once was,” Pillar said. “… I think it would be great for him to retire at the peak of his game and for people to think, ‘He can still play.'”
“I don’t want to be in a situation where it’s, ‘Is he retiring or is he retiring because he can’t find work?’ Not many people can actually retire. [former Astros outfielder] “Michael Brantley chose to retire. If he wanted to play, everyone in baseball knows he would have had a job. He chose to retire. Not many people can do that. They say they’re retiring, but they can’t actually get a job.”
So is this definitely it?
“In my heart, I’m 98 percent sure,” said Pillar, who is married and has two children, ages 6 and 4. “Obviously, things change, but just having another offseason of unknowns and all the stress that that would put on me and my family, I don’t think it’s healthy. If I’m fortunate enough to get a call early in the offseason and someone says can I give them money and a job, then I’ll have a discussion with my family.”
“But I’m just going to enjoy this and play for the love of the game and stay calm no matter what happens.”
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