When a baseball player faces retirement, the natural impulse is to look at his overall career and measure his achievements.
But the snap judgment, the rush to render a final verdict has almost become a cliché among baseball fans, writers and analysts. Is he a Hall of Famer? Sometimes, that question is asked jokingly — even mockingly.
If pitcher Josh Beckett is indeed thinking about retirement, as he confessed to the Los Angeles Times' Dylan Hernandez, due to experiencing numbness in his right hand, then discussing the merits of his 12-year major league career is valid.
While no one would likely suggest that Beckett warrants serious consideration for Cooperstown, it does seem appropriate to ask how much of an impact he had on the game.
Some might argue with this, but Beckett has been viewed as one of the better pitchers in MLB for the last 10 years. At the very least, he's been perceived as a top-of-the-rotation starter.
But has Beckett really been one of the best? Or has he actually been overrated during the course of his career?
Beckett is nowhere near 200 wins, having earned 132 victories in 13 seasons. His winning percentage of .569 (with a record of 132-100) doesn't look terribly impressive either.
We know that wins are no longer the ultimate judge of a pitcher's value, but the great pitchers do have impressive win totals. It's one of the first things cited when measuring a player's Hall of Fame worthiness.
However, Beckett has provided moments of greatness that have left a lasting impression.
His performance in the 2003 postseason, leading the then-Florida Marlins to a World Series championship established that perception. In five starts, he compiled a 2.11 ERA, allowing 10 runs and 21 hits in 42.2 innings. Beckett struck out 47 batters and walked 12, while allowing an opponents' batting average of .145 and a WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) of 0.77.
Throwing a five-hit shutout against the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the World Series — while pitching on three days' rest — was a defining moment. It looked like the beginning of a great pitching career. Surely, Beckett would be dominant for years to come. And he was only 23 years old.
Beckett was later traded to the Boston Red Sox, of course, and had some strong seasons during his seven years with that team. His signature season was 2007, during which he posted a 20-7 record and 3.27 ERA. He also accumulated the lowest walk rate of his career, averaging less than two per nine innings.
Yet according to advanced metrics, Beckett was even better than conventional numbers indicated. His FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 3.08, while he allowed a BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) of .304. There was no luck, no smoke and mirrors. Beckett was simply excellent that year, finishing second in AL Cy Young Award voting to CC Sabathia.
More importantly. Boston finished first in the AL East and went on to win the World Series with a four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies. Life was good for Beckett and the Red Sox.
But did Beckett ever reach that level again during his time in Boston? He had two other notable seasons.
In 2009, he finished with a 17-6 record and 3.86 ERA in a career-high 212.1 innings, earning a spot on the American League All-Star team. But the Red Sox placed second in the AL East and suffered a three-game sweep to the Los Angeles Angels in the divisional round.
Two seasons later, Beckett compiled a 2.89 ERA, the best mark of his career. He went 13-7, while allowing fewer than seven hits per nine innings. That performance earned him another All-Star appearance. But that 2011 season will be remembered infamously in Boston for the Red Sox going 7-20 in September, blowing a nine-game lead in the wild-card standings and missing the playoffs.
Even worse for Beckett, he was closely associated with the fried-chicken-and-beer escapades that took place in the Red Sox clubhouse during that September collapse.
According to Bob Hohler's notorious Oct. 12, 2011 story in the Boston Globe, Beckett was one of three pitchers who drank beer, ate fried chicken and played video games in the clubhouse during games while their teammates were trying to win games and salvage their deteriorating season. He was also among the Boston players who slacked off on his workout routines despite pleas from the team's strength and conditioning coach.
Being viewed as a slacker who didn't seem to care about helping his team win games — let alone championships — was a difficult perception to overcome among Red Sox fans and reporters during the 2012 season.
It certainly didn't help that Beckett was pitching terribly, going 5-11 with a 5.23 ERA. His rate of 6.6 strikeouts per nine innings was the lowest of his 12 major league seasons to that point. That poor performance resulted in him getting booed off the field by fans at Fenway Park twice.
Beckett seemed finished with the Red Sox, with no chance at redemption. Fans weren't going to forgive him for what happened in 2011. He also made the situation even worse by playing golf shortly after skipping his turn in the starting rotation and then complaining about how few days off baseball players get. Beckett embodied the spoiled, entitled athlete to fans and commenters throughout baseball, not just in Boston.
Mercifully, the right-hander was included in the blockbuster trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers that also shipped Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto out of Boston. Would Beckett benefit from the ol' change of scenery, playing in a more pitcher-friendly ballpark like Dodger Stadium while also facing less potent National League lineups?
In seven starts with the Dodgers, the answer appeared to be yes. Beckett went 2-3 with a 2.93 ERA, while boosting his strikeout rate back up to eight per nine innings. Rejuvenation seemed possible, as did the redeeming possibilities of pitching for MLB's new mega-bucks superpower. Beckett could be to the Dodgers what he was to the Red Sox after being dealt to Boston in 2006.
Unfortunately, Beckett's success in Chavez Ravine appears to be short-lived. His 0-5 record and 5.19 ERA are hardly the numbers the Dodgers expected from a pitcher projected as one of the rotation's top three starters. Beckett just doesn't look like that sort of pitcher anymore, despite striking out 8.5 batters per nine innings — his highest rate since 2008.
A strained groin put him on the disabled list back in mid-May. But now there is the numbness in his fingers to deal with. By the time you read this, Beckett will probably have undergone a MRI exam to determine the cause of that numbness. That's led him to confront his baseball mortality and wonder if his career might be over.
Though Beckett is obviously influenced by the fear of encountering something he never has before, it's also notable that his thoughts turned toward retirement. Personally, I believe that once you're thinking of leaving a job, you're probably better off just leaving rather than hang around.
Certainly, that's different for athletes. The body lets them know when it's time. But after 13 seasons and an inglorious last couple of years during which baseball couldn't have been very fun for him, perhaps hanging up his cleats looks more appealing to Beckett. Enjoying some of the $100 million he's earned during his career (according to Baseball-Reference) might just sound more attractive right now.
So if we've seen the last of Beckett on a pitching mound, what's the last word on his career?
Is he the 2000s version of Bret Saberhagen, who alternated good seasons with bad ones? Beckett followed up his best season in 2007 with a 12-10 record and 4.03 ERA the following year. After a strong 2009 season, he went 6-6 with a 5.78 ERA in 2010. Blister problems and back injuries also contributed to those poor every-other-year performances.
Is it fair to look at Beckett's 13 seasons and believe that he should have been better? Or do his handful of fine seasons mean that his overall career should be judged more favorably? After all, very few pitchers have been great every season. But the best of the best showed consistency during their time in the game.
There's certainly nothing wrong with being a very good major league pitcher. Beckett did have an impact — both positive and negative — on the teams he played with.
But will his career have left the lasting impression so many anticpated from him, especially after that postseason breakout in 2003? Even asking such a question implies that Beckett fell short of those expectations. And that feels disappointing.
