Casey Blake hangs 'em up

[Wuzee]

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120508/SPORTS/120508011/-1/hawkeye_insider/Casey-Blake-m-OK-decision-retire-

[WSUwatcher]

Congratulations to Casey on a very solid, respectable career: never a great player, but always a good one once he got the opportunity to establish himself, and nowadays steady competence over a period of years will make you a pile of money ($27 million stacks pretty high).

The Blake family is also a pretty good object lesson in the value of playing college ball in a quality program: $27 million over the years for Casery, a $500,000 (I believe) bonus and a few minor-league salaries for Pete, who signed out of high school. Are you listening, high school and juco recruits?

[shox1989]

Yes it is interesting that he retired just 42 days short of earning a full MLB pension. The pension would have paid him $195,000 a year for the rest of his life. But I guess when you have made $27 million, you don't worry about losing out on $195,000 per year.

Casey Blake always seemed like a great guy and I am glad everything worked out so well for him.

[WSUwatcher]

I don't claim to understand the MLB pension system, but if he came up just short of full vesting, doesn't he still get a partial pension?

Not that it matters that much after earning $27 million, because if he's back in Indianola now he probably still has the great bulk of those earnings, and you can get at least 3-4% in pretty good quality tax free bond funds these days. On (for example) $9 million, or a third of his total earnings, that works out to about $300K or a bit more tax free. I've never been to Indianola, but I'm guessing that amount of after-tax income makes for a comfortable living there, even without a full MLB pension.

To put it in perspective, how many years will WSU's highly paid (and rightly so) basketball coach need to work here to earn $27 million? MLB is a heck of a business if you can stick around for a while.

[ABC]

Wasn't Blake drafted in a higher round out of high school than WSU?

[Spaulding]

Congrats to Casey for having a solid MLB career and going out on his own terms. As a Shocker and Dodger fan, Casey has been a class guy and player in my book. People like to credit Manny Ramirez for sparking that Dodger team on to the division title and playoffs in 2008, but, IMO the Blake deal was just as crucial. He came in and solidified 3rd base, and added a veteran clubhouse guy and leader to that team. Also, while he won't be fully vested in the pension plan, I am sure he will get a partial pension based on his years of service. Even if he doesn't, I'm sure he'll be fine with $27 large in the bank. Plus, being at home with his family is likely worth more than that.

[SPEShockAlum]

Not to say that Casey has been irresponsible with his money - he's a small town Iowa guy and was brought up with strong, Midwestern values; but just because someone has made $27.0MM over a career doesn't mean it is still sitting around in a bank. He averaged $2.7MM a year for the last 10 years and I'm sure most of that came over the last several years when he was performing at a very high level. Personally, I'm scratching my head at the decision to walk away from the pension benefit, but then again, I don't know the entire story. I did see notice that the benefit doesn't kick in until age 62 and, assuming any MLB retiree lives at least another 20 years beyond that (consistent with life expectancy), that's another $3.9MM in total or almost 15% of his total career earnings.

Wow - talk about off topic, though. I do not intend to undermine his professional career by any stretch. It was always a pleasure to watch Casey on TV and in person and know that he was a WSU grad. Congrats on a fantastic career and best wishes in your future endeavors.

[GoShockers89]

Correct me if I'm wrong here- but baseball grants its pension based on service days, right? As in...Casey retired 42 days short of a full pension, but he would have had to be carried all 42 of those days on an active big league roster. So it's not like he could have just waited a month and a half to announce and, voila, fully vested. Getting picked up after the Rockies cut him this spring was a bit of a longshot anyway.

[SubGod22]

Correct me if I'm wrong here- but baseball grants its pension based on service days, right? As in...Casey retired 42 days short of a full pension, but he would have had to be carried all 42 of those days on an active big league roster. So it's not like he could have just waited a month and a half to announce and, voila, fully vested. Getting picked up after the Rockies cut him this spring was a bit of a longshot anyway.

Except didn't it say the Rangers were wanting his services?

[GoShockers89]

Except didn't it say the Rangers were wanting his services?

I think it said he'd fielded "recent interest" from them. No telling what this meant for sure, but any offer would have likely been a minor league deal. Guessing he didn't feel like busing around AAA for the hope of filling in if Beltre landed on the DL.

[Rosewood]

Im just glad I got to see him play when I visited LA a few years back. He even had his own cheering section!

[SubGod22]

I think it said he'd fielded "recent interest" from them. No telling what this meant for sure, but any offer would have likely been a minor league deal. Guessing he didn't feel like busing around AAA for the hope of filling in if Beltre landed on the DL.

I read it that due to injuries on the MLB roster that they wanted him to come in and join them. Then they called him back a second time when another player got injured hoping he'd changed his mind.

[Kung Wu]

Correct me if I'm wrong here- but baseball grants its pension based on service days, right? As in...Casey retired 42 days short of a full pension, but he would have had to be carried all 42 of those days on an active big league roster. So it's not like he could have just waited a month and a half to announce and, voila, fully vested. Getting picked up after the Rockies cut him this spring was a bit of a longshot anyway.

I dunno crapola about MLB -- isn't it unusual from someone to retire in the middle of a season? I would think that would be kind of considered to be an a-hole thing to do -- sign with a team and then quit just a month into the season after he coaches have locked in a roster? Again, I don't squat about it. I guess in MLB maybe it's different than other major sports with their strong minor league system?

[ShockTalk]

I read it that due to injuries on the MLB roster that they wanted him to come in and join them. Then they called him back a second time when another player got injured hoping he'd changed his mind.

The odd thing about the Rangers interest is that they are the only MLB team to still have the same roster today as they had on opening day. I don't believe they've had anyone on the DL from the beginning of the season or during the season, just DTD stuff.

[SubGod22]

The odd thing about the Rangers interest is that they are the only MLB team to still have the same roster today as they had on opening day. I don't believe they've had anyone on the DL from the beginning of the season or during the season, just DTD stuff.

Interesting. The article made it sound differently.