Throughout the season Cubs right-hander Dan Haren strongly hinted that it would be last and today the three-time All-Star made his retirement official.
Haren is certainly still good enough to keep pitching. This season at age 34 he logged 187 innings with a 3.60 ERA for the Marlins and Cubs, starting at least 30 games for the 11th consecutive year.Thank you baseball. I played this beautiful game for 30 years. I took my jersey off for the last time tonight. It was an honor. #ithrew88
— dan haren (@ithrow88) October 22, 2015
St. Louis’ second-round draft pick in 2001 out of Pepperdine, he was traded to Oakland in December of 2004 as part of the Mark Mulder deal and then traded to Arizona three years later as part of a big deal involving Carlos Gonzalez.
Haren finishes with a 3.75 ERA in 2,420 innings for eight different teams, including a three-season run as an ace-caliber starter from 2007-2009. Injuries sapped some of Haren’s effectiveness after that and he always struggled to keep the ball in the ballpark, but he threw strikes, missed more bats than most pitchers with his modest raw stuff, and was one of the better-hitting pitchers with a career .200 batting average and 28 extra-base hits.