Criag Kimbrel has reached a lot of important milestones in his career but this past week he crossed a point that few MLB players ever reach. When he was DFA’d by the Braves and signed a minor league deal with the Rangers he officially became a “You’ll have to tear this jersey off by back” guy and now instead of a sad washed up version of himself he is an inspiration.
Confused about how this works? Hear me out.
You might be thinking to yourself aren’t most players a “you’ll have to tear this jersey off by back” guy? The answer is yes and no. Most baseball players don’t get to decide when their careers end but at some point in their baseball journey whether it is as a sophomore in high school or as a 30 year old journeyman they reach a point where nobody will have them on their team and their baseball career ends. So you could say those players had their jerseys torn off of them but there’s nothing really special about that.
If you’re a 27 year old relief pitcher with 2 years of MLB service time who’s been cut by the Diamondbacks you don’t have the money to retire and live the rest of your life and you’re not well known enough that there’s going to be any sort of media job waiting for you if you just call it quits so of course you are going to keep signing minor league deals with whatever team will have you.
There are currently many players desperately grasping to their last bit of hope to be a major league baseball player and I salute those guys and I respect those guys but what they are doing is not the same as what Craig Kimbrel is doing.
For players that really make it in the big leagues as their careers wind down they can sense it and many of them have the notion to retire before it gets too ugly. David Ortiz put up 5.1 bWAR in his final season and called it quits, I’m sure he could have played another 2-3 years if he had wanted to but he had made up his mind.
Even for players who aren’t performing at an especially high level they usually could get a deal somewhere if for no other reason than to sell some jerseys. If Derek Jeter had wanted to see how long he could last I’m sure a team would have given him a roster spot and even let him fumble around at shortstop at 41 years old if he had been determined to make that happen.
There are some guys who start to fizzle out and sign one last deal with another team before facing reality. I think of Joey Votto where he had been with one team for so long and in a perfect world he would have just retired with that team but the Reds wanted to move on before Joey wanted to retire so he gave it one last run with another team before calling it quits.
But there is a rare group of great players that refuse to face reality. They take a contract with whatever team will have them and then get DFA’d and then sign with another team and then get DFA’d and then sign a minor league deal and then opt out of that deal after the team tells them they’re not going to call them up and then they train on their own until someone gets hurt and a team offers them a deal and then they join their minor league system to get built up and then the hurt player comes back before they’re built up so the team just cuts them and even though getting cut and bouncing around is embarrassing and this player has made enough money and accomplished enough that they don’t need to do it, they do it anyway.
Usually the longer a great player keeps playing past their prime the sadder it gets to watch them. They’ll end up wearing a jersey that looks absolutely disgusting on them. I know nobody wanted to see Ken Griffey wear a White Sox jersey or see Manny Ramirez suit up for the Tampa Bay Rays but it happened.
As an Orioles fan I know all about cursed player/jersey combos like Orioles Jim Thome, or Orioles Vlad Guerrero (he was actually sick), or Orioles Sammy Sosa or Orioles Reggie Jackson or Orioles Felix Hernandez or most recently Orioles Craig Kimbrel who is the inspiration for this blog.
However there is a point where seeing a great player cling onto their baseball career with the same desperation as a 20th round draft pick trying not to get cut from high A Aberdeen goes from sad to inspiring.
A point where when you get the notification that X great player has signed a minor league deal with the X team and instead of the reaction being “Aw man just retire we don’t want to see this.” the reaction is “Hell yeah brother make them tear that jersey off your back.” and that’s the point that Criag Kimbrel just reached and what I want to examine today.
When is this point? Who else has reached that point? Is there anyone else approaching this point?
When or Where is the “Tear That Jersey Off My Back” point?
Figuring out when the TTJOMB point is more of an art than a science because you can’t have reached that point until you create the feeling of inspiration associated with TTJOMB within fans.
In examining the TTJOMB phenomenon I have found that the easier way to define it is to talk about what it isn’t and to do that we have to look at examples of great players who played a long time that never reached that point.
Albert Pujols
Albert Pujols played until he was 42 years old but he never reached TTJOMB status which helps us establish rule number 1.
- TTJOMB status has nothing do with age
A big reason that Albert never reached that status is that even though it did get very sad to watch him his last few years with the Angels, he was on a massive contract being paid very well to go out there and run out the clock on his career. A big part of becoming a TTJOMB guy is that there has to be no logical reason for you still playing other than the fact that you are some sort of baseball sicko who can’t let it go and as long as you’re on one of the richest deals in the league then that simply doesn’t apply to you.
So Albert also gives us rules number 2, rule 2-1 and 2-2.
- You can’t be finishing out a multi year contract you signed in your prime
- Preferably you can’t be on a multi year deal at all
- You also can’t be one of the highest paid players on the team
Now if Albert had only given us these rules that would have been a pretty nice contribution to our cause but he went above and beyond and supplied us with another rule as well
- You can’t be playing for a team/city where you have a connection with the fans
Albert did finish off his contract and signed one more deal. Now if this deal had been with the Marlins or the Twins or some other team that Albert had no connection to this could have been the beginning of his process of becoming a TTJOMB guy but instead he went back to St.Louis where he is beloved.
Albert’s career does follow the overall path of a TTJOMB guy in the sense that it was sad to watch him and then it got fun again but that had more to do with him playing well a farewell tour situation than about him wading through the indignities of being a once great journeyman and coming out on the other side. As I said in relation to rule 2 a big part of being a TTJOMB guy is that there has to be no reason for you to be playing and as long as you are playing for a City where you mean something there is the hope of you getting one last beautiful moment in front of the fans who have been with you since the beginning.
That is a great reason to keep playing and Albert did get that beautiful moment with the fans in St. Louis but it’s not a TTJOMB reason to keep playing.
Kenley Jansen
Kenley Jansen could still reach TTJOMB guy status but he has yet to do so. From him we can learn another key rule about the TTJOMB point. Jansen is on his third team since he and the Dodgers parted ways and it’s not looking great so far with the Angels.
Bouncing around the league playing for teams that you would have turned your nose up at in your prime is a symptom of being a TTJOMB guy but Jansen doesn’t inspiring that TTJOMB feeling which leads us to next rule
- You can’t be playing your preferred role
This can mean different things for different players. In Jansen’s case it means he can’t be a TTJOMB guy as long as he signed his contract with the understanding that he’d be the teams primary closer. For a position player it most likely means you aren’t an everyday player or you’re only DHing or you’re just hitting way down in the order when you were always a top 3 hitter in the lineup kind of guy.
In any case you can’t be a TTJOMB guy until you’ve signed a contract understanding that even if you get to play it won’t be on your terms.
Randy Johnson
I’m going a little farther back to look at Randy Johnson because he was someone that I hypothesized could be part of the TTJOMB club because the picture of him wearing the San Francisco Giants jersey is pretty synonymous with hanging on until the very end but I looked at his stats and he was just too good the year before.
As I looked at a few TTJOMB candidates I saw a theme of guys who were pretty good their second to last season before signing with an odd team, being washed and then calling it quits. I just can’t consider you a TTJOMB guy if you retire after your first season of being kind of bad.
True TTJOMB guys stare failure right in the face and say to themselves “all I have to do is get right and I’ll be back.”
Guys like Randy Johnson, Jim Thome and Vlad Guerrero teach us that it’s not enough to play a little too long and end up playing your last season wearing a jersey that looks ridiculous on you, it’s what you do after that season that makes you a TTJOMB guy. So here is rule number 5:
- TTJOMB guys can’t be good in their second to last season
Pedro Martinez
Pedro Martinez was close to becoming a TTJOMB guy. If after his 2008 season he had signed with the Orioles then perhaps he would be considered a TTJOMB guy but instead he signed with Phillies to ring chase. I don’t begrudge any player for joining a winner to try to play some high stakes October baseball but it is a clear motivating factor outside of what we want our TTJOMB guys to have. Thanks to Pedro we now know of 6 rules:
- You can’t be playing for a title favorite
Andruw Jones
Andruw Jones is another almost TTJOMB guy. He bounced around at the end of his career like a lot of TTJOMB guys do but he decided to finish his career with the Yankees and it’s never cool to be a Yankee. Hence rule #7:
- You can’t play for the Yankees
Robinson Cano
Cano fits the TTJOMB model to a T BUT he’s got multiple steroid suspensions and once you’ve been popped several times in the last few years of your career your story just isn’t that inspiring anymore and inspiring is the main ingredient to being TTJOMB guy.
- You can’t fail multiple PED tests
Ichiro
I’ve spent a lot of time telling you what makes someone not a TTJOMB guy but Ichiro will supply us with a work around in case someone violates one of the rules but is still a TTJOMB guy in spirit. Ichiro finished his career with the Mariners which violates one of our early rules but when he was 43 playing for the Marlins for discernable reason other than an intense love of the game he became a TTJOMB guy and you can’t lose that title. So thanks to Ichiro we have rule number 9.
- Even if you break some of the TTJOMB rules you can still be a TTJOMB guy if you’ve got that dog in you.
After what the Braves did to Kimbrel I’m sure most people would have had enough and said “I’ve made enough money, I had a good run and my name is in the record books I don’t need to do this anymore.” but instead Craig looked at himself and said “I still have more in me even if these teams don’t think so and I’ll go play baseball Round Rock Texas in June to prove it.”
I was not a fan of Craig Kimbrel before or during his time with Orioles but seeing him show this amount of grit and determination to fight to the very end like this makes you want to root for the guy.
Other current or possible future TTJOMB Guys
I don’t know if Justin Turner and Jason Heyward are quite good enough all time for this but they are certainly getting close qualifying as guys who have accomplished a ton in their careers and are still signing with whoever will take them each season.
Carlos Santana is similar although he’s been better in latter seasons than earlier in his careers so he hasn’t quite declined like most TTJOMB guys do before they can cross the TTJOMB point.
If Dj Lemahieu or Giancarlos Stanton keep playing after their Yankee contracts end they’ll both be strong contenders.
I have an eye on Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer who are both currently wearing jerseys that will be hilarious to look back on but are getting paid enough that they can’t really be TTJOMB guys yet. If either of them gets DFA’d and then signs a deal with another team they’re not connected to that would make them instant TTJOMB guys.
I started trying to compile a list of TTJOMB guys from the last 25 years but I found it quite difficult because so much of being a TTJOMB guy is the feelings you inspire and I can’t go back and time and feel what it was like to watch Jason Giambi play for the Rockies so here is a list of notable guys who I THINK could have been TTJOMB guys but I can’t know for sure because I wasn’t paying close enough attention.
Luis Gonzalez
Ian Kinsler
Roy Oswalt
John Smoltz
Ivan Rodriguez
Kenny Lofton
Cole Hamels
Jason Giambi
If you have players you remember well as TTJOMB guys please reach out and share them with me at The.Dishwasher1954@gmail.com.
The Dishwasher 
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