Jayson Werth, the Washington Nationals' first big signing who helped lead the team to relevance, isn't using the word retirement, but he says he's finished playing professional baseball.
"I'm done ... whatever you want to call it," he told Fancred Sports.
The 39-year-old had been made a free agent in November 2017 by the Nationals and signed with the Seattle Mariners. He had been playing with Triple-A Tacoma -- batting .206 with four homers and 19 RBIs -- when he made the decision.
Heading into his age-32 season, Werth signed a seven-year, $126 million contract with the Nationals in 2011. The deal was roundly criticized as being excessive for a player that age, but Werth's tenure with the Nats coincided with the team going from bottom dweller to contender.
Werth helped the Philadelphia Phillies win the World Series in 2008 and was an All-Star in 2009 when he set career highs with 36 home runs and 99 RBIs.
In seven years with Washington, he hit .263 with 109 home runs. More importantly, the Nationals made the playoffs four times after not going to the postseason at all in their first seven seasons in Washington.
"Washington, D.C., is known for its historic monuments documenting our country's great leaders," Werth's longtime agent Scott Boras told Fancred Sports. "Werth will be remembered as the Nationals' first true leader, documenting the beginning and rise of a great franchise."
Werth finishes his 15-year career as a .267 hitter with 229 home runs and 799 RBIs.
Known for his long hair, big beard and aggressive style, Werth had two words to sum up his big league experience: "No regrets," he told the website.
There’s one fewer Mets killer in Major League Baseball.
Jayson Werth, who was instrumental in bringing a World Series title to Philadelphia and helped lead the Nationals to prominence, announced Wednesday he is stepping away from the game.
But don’t call it a retirement.
“I’m done … whatever you want to call it,” Werth told Fancred Sports.
He hadn’t played in the majors since being made a free agent last November by the Nationals and signing with the Mariners. He was batting .206 with four home runs and 19 RBIs this season with Triple-A Tacoma.
Werth began his major league career with the Blue Jays then played two seasons with the Dodgers. After missing the entire 2006 season due to injuries, he signed with the Phillies, where he won a World Series ring in 2008 and made his only All-Star team in 2009, when he produced career highs in home runs (36) and RBIs (99).
Before the 2011 season, the Nationals signed him to a seven-year, $126 million deal, one of the franchise’s first major signings after moving to Washington.
Werth helped Washington reach the playoffs for the first time in 2012 and ultimately helped the Nationals win the NL East four times in his seven years with the team.
Like most prominent NL East players, he did significant damage against the Mets in his career, hitting .281 with 14 home runs and 101 runs scored.
“Washington, DC, is known for its historic monuments documenting our country’s great leaders,” Scott Boras, Werth’s longtime agent, told Fancred. “Werth will be remembered as the Nationals’ first true leader, documenting the beginning and rise of a great franchise.”
Boras’ grandiosity aside, the 39-year-old Werth did have a fine career, playing 15 years and finishing with 229 home runs and 799 RBIs.
Asked to sum up his career, Werth told Fancred: “No regrets.”
Jayson Werth left behind a legacy of winning and professionalism after signing — and playing the entirety — of a seven-year, $126 million deal with the Nationals. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
The time came for Jayson Werth to leave home on June 18, and suddenly a certainty felt more like a decision. For 22 years, he had played professional baseball, always focused on the next workout, the next at-bat, the next pitch. He had been home in McLean for the past 10 days, recovering from the hamstring he pulled on a minor league diamond in Nashville, playing for Class AAA Tacoma, with the belief he would eventually be called up to the Seattle Mariners. He finally felt healthy, and he was a ballplayer, so that meant it was time to leave.
Except Werth wanted to stay. At home, he got to coach first base and watch his 16-year-old son, Jackson. He studied the Mariners’ outfield situation and saw little urgent need for a right-handed bat. He would have to relocate to Tacoma, where “it’s like playing on the rings of Saturn,” Werth said — he would text his family to say good night between batting practice and first pitch.
The hamstring strain had been minor, but he wondered if it wasn’t a sign from the baseball gods. A serious injury — Achilles’ tear, knee ligaments — could affect him for years and limit his ability to hunt and snowboard and whatever else he wanted to do.
And so Werth, 39, made a tough choice. He would stay home. He would accept the end of his career, the inevitable, sooner than he imagined.
[Archive: Jayson Werth wanted one more run]
“Once you give up that dream, you give it up,” Werth said. “But on the other hand, it’s like I haven’t been a member of my family in the summer, ever.”
Werth made public his retirement Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of a season he expected would be far different. He knew Father Time would win. He is surprised it came like this. But he also feels at peace, free of stress, he said, for the first time since he entered professional baseball. He plans to coach his kids and take up tennis.
Over 15 seasons in the majors, Werth carved out a small place in baseball history. He won a ring with the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies and could have — probably should have — been named World Series MVP. His seven-year, $126 million contract with the Washington Nationals was the 13th-richest ever at the time of signing. He boasts some peculiar statistical achievements; he retires fifth all-time in stolen base percentage (85.161), a figure he cherished.
In Washington, he will be remembered as the intense, shaggy, beloved, relentless, fascinating figure who turned the Nationals from a laughingstock into an annual contender.
“His play on the field can be analyzed and evaluated based on the numbers,” General Manager Mike Rizzo said. “What he brought to the organization cannot be. He’s the unsung hero of what we have become.”
[End of an era? Werth ‘proud to call myself a National’]
He had a transformative effect on the franchise in tangible ways, beyond standard change-the-culture cliches. He understood what a major league operation should be, and when the Nationals failed to meet the standard, he let people know.
Werth made recommendations — which the team acted on — about the food the Nationals serve in their clubhouse and the medical specialists they sent injured players to. He pressured ownership to invest in better workout equipment in the weight room. He insisted the Nationals expand auxiliary staff — batting practice pitchers, bullpen catchers. The baseballs the Nationals use in practice, from the majors to the Dominican Summer League, are better quality than they were seven years ago, thanks to Werth.
Ryan Zimmerman provided the best analogy about Werth: He is the guy who annoys everybody in the office because he’s always complaining the copy machine is broken, but then management fixes the copier and everybody is happier and everything is running a lot smoother.
“Ultimately what we have become is a lot to do with some of the things that he brought to the ballclub,” Rizzo said. “He was teaching us how to be a championship organization, not only on the big league side but throughout the organization.”
Werth did not tolerate ineptitude or laziness or other traits he viewed as impediments to winning. In his first spring training, he demanded Nyjer Morgan finish a dog-days battery of sprints and nearly came to blows with Morgan, who would shortly thereafter be shipped to the Milwaukee Brewers. He tore one of Matt Williams’s lineup cards off the wall and then asked him, “When do you think you lost this team?” He told a rookie to change the neon green laces in his sneakers. Once, when asked why he had trotted to first base rather than charge the mound after New York Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon clearly drilled him on purpose, Werth replied, “We don’t have time for bull----.”
Werth believed the shtick of Teddy losing every President’s Race embedded losing into the franchise’s identity, so he declared himself “the last remaining member of the Bull Moose Party” and, with teammate Rick Ankiel’s assistance, staged a coup in defiance of team officials, tackling or blocking the other mascots in the right field corner.
Werth’s retirement prompted reflection on how he came to Washington. In 2011, the Phillies were a colossus and the Nationals were a punchline.
“Some would argue less than an expansion team,” Rizzo said.
Rizzo sold Werth on his vision at a covert meeting in California. Theo Epstein and Terry Francona pitched Werth on behalf of the Boston Red Sox, a team his grandfather had played for, an organization Werth always envisioned himself playing for. The Red Sox offered the same $18 million per season as the Nationals, over six seasons. When the Nationals offered a seventh year and a no-trade clause, Werth accepted. He wanted to build a team rather than sustain one.
The Red Sox pivoted to Carl Crawford, whose miserable Boston tenure ended when the Red Sox dealt him to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a salary dump. He crumbled under the expectations Werth would have faced.
“What happened to Carl Crawford was not probably the best time of his life, it didn’t seem,” Werth said. “That could have been me. That was one of the things that really stood out [over the past week]. I made a really good decision. It was not an easy decision.”
In Game 4 of the 2012 National League Division Series, in the bottom of the ninth inning, Werth survived 12 pitches from Lance Lynn and clobbered the 13th into the visitors’ bullpen. It remains the greatest Washington baseball memory since Walter Johnson won the World Series. The next night, the Nationals took a 6-0 lead and still lost when the St. Louis Cardinals scored four runs in the ninth inning.
[Archive: Werth’s ninth-inning HR lifts Nats in Game 4 of 2012 NLDS]
“Coming in the clubhouse there’s plastic up, they’re wheeling the champagne cart and the beer carts out,” Werth said. “Somehow, we didn’t win that game. That’s probably the one thing that will stick with me probably forever.”
The Nationals never won a title, or even a playoff series. But Werth won four division titles, and during his Washington tenure only the Dodgers won more regular season games. Since the start of Werth’s second season until now, the Nationals have played only a handful of baseball not relevant to the standings.
Werth wanted to sign another contract after his Nationals megadeal expired, to hang on another few seasons in a limited role, to play the kid’s game he took deathly serious a little longer. Forces worked against him — he battled injuries last year, and teams en masse chose cheap youth over late-30s veterans. “He had bad timing,” Rizzo said.
Werth still believed he could make it back to the bigs, but this month convinced him to halt the effort. He’s intrigued by working in a front office, and he could see television. For now, he’s happy to coach his sons and relax.
“I can’t remember the last time I’ve had this little stress,” Werth said. “A lot of that stuff that’s going to be tough to replace. Some of it will be nice to not replace.”
The feeling is mutual for the Nationals.
“Whenever I hear his name, I miss him,” Rizzo said. “I miss that frickin’ big beard and that big hair and his presence in the clubhouse and the stuff he would pull. Especially in spring training, I think he was missed. I think guys kept looking for him to pop through, and when he didn’t, it was weird.”
Werth will not go into the Hall of Fame. But two cities will remember him fondly. Old teammates will revere him. Former opponents will respect him. He helped one franchise to its highest point and utterly changed another. Baseball will go on without him. But it will feel a little weird.
Stacy Revere/Getty Images
Former Major League Baseball All-Star Jayson Werth's playing career has come to an end after 15 years.
Per Jon Heyman of Fancred Sports, the 39-year-old Werth didn't use the word retirement but left no doubt where things stand.
"I'm done...whatever you want to call it," he said Wednesday.
Werth signed a minor league deal with the Seattle Mariners in March. He appeared in 36 games with their Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma, hitting .206/.297/.389, and his last contest came June 8.
Selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the first round of the 1997 draft, Werth made his MLB debut with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2002.
After brief cups of coffee with the Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers, Werth found success as an everyday player with the Philadelphia Phillies from 2007-10. The Illinois native won a World Series in 2008 and led the league with 46 doubles in 2010.
Werth was also a key figure in Washington Nationals history when he signed a seven-year free-agent deal with the franchise in December 2010. He helped them make four playoff appearances from 2012-17.
