San Francisco Giants: Ex-World Series MVP Edgar Renteria Calls It A Day On MLB Career

The last time Edgar Renteria took the field in a San Francisco Giants uniform, he was on top of the baseball world. In fact, you could even say that the then 34-year old was the one who got the team there.

Well, okay, maybe that last bit is a stretch, but I doubt very many Giants fans (and Texas Rangers fans, for that matter) have forgotten Renteria’s three-run shot off Cliff Lee in Game 5 of the 2010 World Series that turned out to be the series-winning hit and made the shortstop the unlikely MVP of the series.

Renteria was nearing the tail-end of his career then, and now, a little more than two years later, the 16-year veteran has finally made the decision to call it a day on his playing days.

Would he be able to be an effective bench player today? It’s likely, considering that he’s never been a below replacement player through the entirety of his career.

However, retirement was probably a long time coming for the 37-year old anyway considering that he hasn’t played in the majors since 2011, when he made 71 starts at short (96 games total) for the Cincinnati Reds. As reported by Mike Axisa of CBS Sports, Renteria made his announcement on Colombian television station RCN Television, saying that he “always wanted Colombia to know before the rest of the world.”

Though he was well past his 6.9 fWAR prime by the time he arrived in San Francisco (his sixth team), Renteria’s 1.4 fWAR season in 2012 earned over 72 games 62 starts) could be seen as something of a minor resurgence, as he posted a .276/.332/.374 triple-slash coming off two years of steady decline (.699 OPS in 2008, .635 in 2009).

Unfortunately, he was never able to get back to the playoffs since closing out 2010 as only the fourth player to have two World Series-winning hits in his career (he also had one in 1997).

That said, given the fact that he was essentially a part-time player who earned his job back with the Giants in the playoffs, his .286/.324/.457 MVP run is some story to go out on (even if, you know, he had a minor contract spat with the team afterwards).