Ianetta announces retirement
St. Raphael grad had 14-year career in major leagues
The end-of-the-road quote delivered by Chris Iannetta to a national baseball reporter proved to be nearly a carbon copy of what the former St. Raphael Academy product said to this scribe prior to the first stab at this year’s spring training.
“I’m not going to Triple-A. It’s either I’m going to make it with the Yankees, get picked up by another team, or I’m done,” said Iannetta, his words appearing in the Feb. 7 edition of the Times/ Call sports section.
(An aside: six months ago now feels like six years ago given the dramatic 180-degree turn in everyday life that’s taken place since the last time I caught up with Iannetta in-person.) Let’s now fast forward to this past Saturday when Iannetta all but confirmed that he was retiring from Major League Baseball. Speaking to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Iannetta remarked, “If I didn’t make the team out of spring [training], I was going to call it a career. They knew that the whole time.”
With those two quotes serving as this column’s backbone, it wasn’t shocking to learn of Iannetta’s decision to hang up his shin guards and chest protector for good. He proved true to his word – in this case, reading the tea leaves was not required – after the Yankees removed him from the 30-man roster and designated him for assignment earlier this month.
There would be no biding his time at New York’s alternate site in Moosic, Pa. In pre-pandemic times, the action would have been referenced as getting sent to Triple-A. For Iannetta, it was going to be either boom or bust. At age 37, the middle ground option of hanging around a non-MLB environment held little appeal.
Now the time has come to reflect on what a long ride it was – one that started when George W. Bush was in the White House and a social media outlet called Twitter was gaining serious traction.
From Aug. 27, 2006 until Aug. 10, 2019, Iannetta was firmly entrenched as a major leaguer. The final tally says he logged 14 years at baseball’s highest level. In terms of Rhode Island natives and those who reached the majors in the post-World War II era, Davey Lopes enjoyed a playing career that spanned 16 seasons. That’s pretty good company to keep when sizing up MLB ambassadors with Ocean State born-and-bred ties.
A R.I. homegrown product himself, Alan Nero holds the title of Managing Director of Octagon’s Baseball Division. Octagon is the agency that Iannetta has been associated with since 2004 when the Colorado Rockies drafted him in the fourth round, hence Nero was there every step of the way.
“It’s been a combination of myself and my son Lou … sharing with Chris and growing with him,” said Nero when reached Saturday night. “He beat the odds making the big leagues as soon as he did, then he beat the odds basically every year in competing and surviving as one of the solid major league catchers over the past 10-15 years. I’ve been in the business 35 years and can say that very few worked harder than Chris.
“I think he’s very much at peace with himself,” Nero added. “He’s had an opportunity to reflect and to realize what he’s accomplished. I don’t think I could have gotten him to admit that a month ago. For once in his life, he’s looking back and realizing what he accomplished.”
In 1,197 career games, Iannetta produced a batting line of .230/.345/.406 with 141 home runs. Seven times, he ended a season with 10-plus homers. Per Fangraphs, his WAR (Wins Above Replacement) was 7.6. The folks at Baseball-Reference were much more generous with Iannetta’s WAR standing at 15 right on the nose.
He never won a Gold Glove and there were years when the sabermetric community at StatCorner declared that some campaigns were better than others when it came to framing pitches. All told, Iannetta enjoyed two tours with the Rockies (2006-11, 2018-19) along with stints with the Angels (2012-14), Mariners (2015-16), and Diamondbacks (2017). He logged at-bats for three postseason clubs and was also on the World Series roster in 2007 when Colorado got swept by Boston.
Iannetta authored his baseball tale either two or three time zones away. That probably hurts his cause when talking about Rhode Islanders who lasted for a long time in a pro setting. Unless the team he was on happened to be playing the Red Sox, Iannetta was out of sight and out of mind.
There are exceptions. The late George Patrick Duffy, one of the true icons on Pawtucket’s sports scene, never hesitated to pick up the phone and let the local media know that Iannetta had done something noteworthy. Duffy, who passed away in 2015, coached Iannetta at St. Raphael as well as at the Pawtucket RBI and American Legion levels.
No question, Duffy is telling everyone he knows in heaven that one of his favorite pupils is walking away after a lengthy career.
The former SRA standout should be lauded for his longevity. A study done by the University of Colorado at Boulder research team once declared that the average career of a Major League Baseball player is 5.6 years. Iannetta came close to tripling that figure because he adopted a simple approach to treat every season like it could be his last.
To him, it was about staving off the wolves as long as humanly possible.
“Any time you can play another baseball season, a Major League Baseball season, it’s rewarding. I never thought it would be possible to play this long,” said Iannetta in a Feb. 2019 interview with the Times/Call.
There wasn’t much that Iannetta didn’t encounter during his 14-year odyssey. Like a Greek myth that strikes the right balance between triumphs and tragedies, there were productive moments on the diamond – Iannetta was behind the plate when Jered Weaver threw a no-hitter in 2012 – interspersed with tough-to-swallow demotions to the minor leagues. He was traded away by the same Colorado franchise that drafted and developed him. Iannetta also knows the joy of signing a free agent deal and the sorrow of being told that he’s being released.
Early in his career, Iannetta had a tendency to be his own harshest critic. A bad season meant that not much grass was going to grow under his feet in terms of ratcheting up his offseason routine.
As he started to string seasons together like pearls on a necklace, he understood the fine balance between putting in the necessary work during the offseason but also listening to what his body was telling him. What worked when he was 23 or 24 wasn’t going to translate as he approached his mid 30s and beyond.
“He was always serious because his expectations were so high,” said Nero. “He was always focused on being the best player he could be.”
As for what retirement might look like, Iannetta planted some seeds a few years ago when he became a co-founder of a Napa, Calif.-based winery. Another possibility, based on the seat he once held on the executive subcommittee of Major League Baseball’s Players Association, is some degree of union involvement.
Over the weekend, Iannetta took the final step in his career that wasn’t short on staying power.
To remain as long as he did in the majors is an incredible athletic accomplishment, and what a ride it was.