Recent Mariners trade bust retires after lost year away from the game

There's been a major league retirement that concerns the Seattle Mariners, as former second baseman Kolten Wong has announced that he's hanging up his spikes after an 11-year career.

The news came courtesy of Brian McInnis of Spectrum News, who was among the media members who caught up with Wong on Friday at the University of Hawaii, where he was throwing out the first pitch before a game against UC San Diego.

"Pretty much right now, I'm done,” Wong said. “I've kind of come to the conclusion that I'm probably going to be hanging them up. It's just one of those things where, the game how it's going now, there’s no sense of chasing [it]...I'm a dad now, yes, I'm enjoying that. I'm trying to be the best big league dad that I can be. So I'm going to stick to that.”

This isn't a shocking development. Though he's only 34 years old, Wong has been off the radar and indeed out of organized baseball since he was cut loose from the Arizona Diamondbacks organization last May.

Kolten Wong's time in Seattle marked a low point in an otherwise solid career

You might say Mariners fans were the first to know that Wong's career was running out of gas. Because after he arrived in Seattle in December of 2022, an exciting "how it started" was swiftly followed by a painful "how it's going."

When the Mariners acquired the two-time Gold Glover from the Milwaukee Brewers, he was meant to be a solution for a second base spot that had been a major issue the previous season. The 2022 Mariners got only 0.5 rWAR from the keystone, making it one of the least productive spots on a roster that was otherwise good enough to snap the franchise's 21-year playoff drought.

Though his defensive quality was well established, Wong also arrived in Seattle on an offensive upswing. He had posted a career-high 116 OPS+ for the Brewers in 2022, with 15 home runs and 17 stolen bases.

Alas, Wong's offensive revolution did not continue in the Pacific Northwest. In 67 games as a Mariner, he batted just .165 with two home runs and a single stolen base. He had a 35 OPS+, placing seventh from the bottom among Mariners hitters who played at least 60 games for them in a season.

The Mariners finally released Wong in August, after which they were powerless as they watched him find his form again for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He hit .300/.353/.500 in 20 games with them down the stretch, and subsequently appeared in all three of their playoff contests.

Even after that, however, Wong could only get a minor league deal with the Baltimore Orioles the following winter — even though he clearly wanted nothing to do with the minors. He ended up opting out of that deal to sign another MiLB contract with Arizona, for whom he played 31 games at Triple-A before his aforementioned release.

As trade legacies go, the Wong trade isn't one of the worst deals the Mariners have ever made. It was essentially a cash-neutral swap with the Brewers, who got Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro from Seattle. Simply moving on from Winker was addition by subtraction, and he was nearly as bad for Milwaukee (i.e., 59 OPS+) as Wong was for Seattle. Toro played only nine games as a Brewer.

Ultimately, that Wong did not have the best time in Seattle is notable, yet not cause for sour grapes at a time like this. Not many guys who come through Major League Baseball can say they won multiple Gold Gloves, much less that they got both Rookie of the Year and MVP votes. Wong accomplished all three and averaged a solid 3.1 rWAR per 162 games across 11 seasons.

Whatever is next for Wong, we at SoDo Mojo wish him nothing but the best.