Trey Mancini’s baseball story has always been about more than the box score, and on Tuesday morning he closed the book on it.
The 34-year-old Winter Haven, Fla., native announced his retirement in an Instagram post, ending a career that took him from an eighth-round Orioles Draft pick in 2013 to six seasons in Baltimore, a World Series ring in Houston and one final big league return with the Angels.
“To every fan, especially those in Birdland, your support over the years has meant the world to me,” Mancini wrote in his post. “There is nothing more special in sports than a connection between a team and their fans, and I was lucky enough to feel that everywhere I played.”
Mancini spent most of his career with the Orioles, appearing in 701 games over six seasons and producing the kind of steady, middle-of-the-order work that made him a fixture in Baltimore. From 2016-22, he put up 10.1 wins above replacement, with 137 doubles, 117 home runs, 350 RBIs and a .270/.334/.463 slash line. His biggest season came in 2019, when he ripped 38 doubles, launched 35 homers and posted an .899 OPS in 154 games.
His path, though, was interrupted in March 2020 when a routine blood test early in Spring Training revealed Stage 3 colon cancer. Mancini missed the entire 2020 season, beat the disease and returned to the Orioles at the start of 2021.
In the years since, he has often spoken about the people who carried him through that stretch, especially his wife, Sara. He did so again on Tuesday.
“We have been through a lifetime’s worth of experiences together for the last seven years,” Mancini wrote. “You have stood by my side through both unimaginably difficult and incredibly euphoric times. …
“I would also like to give a special thank you to both the athletic trainers during my time as an Oriole and my doctors at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Simply put, your proactivity and expertise saved my life, and I am forever indebted to you all.”
Mancini’s career after Baltimore included 51 games with the Astros in 2022, when he won a World Series championship, followed by 79 games with the Cubs in 2023 and five with the Angels earlier this year. He did not play in 2024, then started another comeback effort in 2025 with a Minor League deal from the Diamondbacks, spending the whole season at Triple-A Reno.
He later signed another Minor League deal with the Angels before the 2026 season and reported to Triple-A Salt Lake. That move was tied in part to his friendship with Brady Anderson, the Angels’ first-year hitting coach and a former Orioles outfielder who worked in Baltimore’s front office early in Mancini’s time with the organization.
The return finally came in June. Mancini got back to the majors on June 8 and went 3-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored against the Astros in his first game for the Angels. Over his short stint with the Halos, he hit 4-for-13 with a triple and four RBIs before being designated for assignment on June 17.
But the numbers were never the real point. Mancini got one more shot to play in the majors, and he made clear in June how much that meant to him.
“It was fun to be back out there,” Mancini told MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger in June. “It’s the same emotions you go through when you debut when it’s been that long of a layoff. It was just great to be back out there and something I definitely don’t -- and won’t -- take for granted.”
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