Justin Morneau Is Calling It A Career And Joining The Twins Front Office
After 14 major league seasons, Justin Morneau is calling it a career and joining the Minnesota Twins’ front office. I don’t want to call it a “sad” ending to his career, because it was still a damn good major league career, but it’s hard not to wonder how much better he would’ve been had concussions not entered the equation. Morneau’s first documented concussion as a major leaguer was back in 2005 before concussion issues were really brought to the forefront, but a concussion that he suffered in the summer of 2010 was really the unfortunate turning point in his career.
After suffering that concussion in July of 2010, Morneau did not return for the rest of the season and was limited to just 69 games the following year. At the time of the injury, Morneau was hitting .345 with a 1.055 OPS and was named to his fourth consecutive and final All Star team at the age of 29. The whole “final All Star team” thing might be overstated, though, because Morneau would go on to win a batting title in 2014 with the Rockies, but that year was the outlier season from what Morneau was able to produce following that 2010 season-ending concussion.
The following year in 2011, Morneau dealt with a left wrist injury, a right foot injury, a left shoulder injury and then missed the final couple weeks of the season due to concussion symptoms. He hit just .227 that year with a .618 OPS in 288 plate appearances. But before all of that, Morneau was a star. He won the American League MVP in 2006 after hitting .321 with a .924 OPS, 37 doubles, 34 home runs and 130 RBI. Two years later, he’d finish runner-up for the award after hitting .300 with an .873 OPS, 47 doubles, 23 home runs, and 129 RBI. In fact, from that 2006 season through the 81 games that he played in 2010, Morneau was a .298 hitter with a .900 OPS.
It’s easy to forget that he was one of the best hitters in the league for five years before the concussions threw a wrench in his career, because he hung around to play six more seasons. In those six seasons, Morneau hit a respectable .275 with a .764 OPS, but those numbers were a far cry from what he was doing at the plate prior to the concussions. After concussions ended his 2010 and 2011 seasons, Morneau was seemingly in the clear — at least, concussion-wise — until he ended up on the 60-day disabled list for concussion symptoms in 2015. After playing 49 games for the Rockies that year, Morneau finished out his career playing a very forgettable 58 games for the White Sox in 2016.
I get wanting to make a living. I get wanting to play because you love the game. But sometimes it just gets to a point where it’s not worth it. And for Morneau, it just wasn’t worth it anymore. The more we learn about concussions, the more we understand that this is not something that you want to mess around with. He’s got a wife and two kids to think about, so good on the Twins for offering him the chance to come on home to Minnesota and make an honest living, while still getting to fill the baseball void in his life that was left after retiring.