Evan Longoria
Not everyone can get a send off like Miguel Cabrera's when they come to the end of their careers in the major leagues. Most guys won't get curtain calls and gifts upon arrival to every rival ballpark in their last year. Most guys aren't Triple Crown winners, it's true, but a lot of team staples, hometown heroes, even World Series winners, go off pretty quietly into the night. This year, it was players like Brandon Crawford of the San Francisco Giants and Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals, whose futures are still technically uncertain although the common wisdom is that they'll retire. They tipped their caps to standing home crowds in their last at bats or as they were pulled from the mound, but other than that didn't get much more of a goodbye.
It looks like Evan Longoria might be one of those guys too. Longo, now 38, has spent 16 seasons in MLB, most with the Tampa Bay Rays. This is his first year in Arizona, and it's likely that it'll be his last in the major leagues altogether. His plate appearances have waned significantly since 2021 after a shoulder sprain put him on the 60-day IL and injuries started to compound. He's technically Arizona's primary third baseman but only appeared in 73 games this year, due in part to a back injury in July.
Longoria is beloved across baseball, and rightfully so. He's a solid clubhouse presence, still capable of showing flashes of power and inherent instinct at third base, and he's saved a person's life on camera. But it's undeniable that his time in baseball is coming to an end, and from a front office perspective, it wouldn't be wise to keep paying him millions of dollars for what at this point would only be for sentimentality's sake.