Matt Beaty’s baseball journey has officially come to an end.
The former San Diego Padres utility man announced his retirement Monday on Instagram, nearly two years after his last game in affiliated baseball with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Double-A affiliate. Beaty is 33.
Over 305 career major league games, Beaty suited up for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2019-21, the Padres in 2022, the San Francisco Giants in 2023 and the Kansas City Royals in 2023. He also appeared in 15 postseason games across three seasons with the Dodgers.
“It’s been almost two years since my last at-bat in baseball,” Beaty wrote on Instagram. “The time since then has been filled with questions and back-and-forth.
Should I keep playing? Is there another opportunity out there?
Or is it finally time to close this chapter?
“In my experience, a decision like this isn’t easy. You spend your entire life devoting time, effort and sacrifice to a game.
You make choices and give up opportunities because baseball doesn’t always allow you to experience life the way everyone else does. When something has been such a huge part of your life for so long, walking away is hard.
Deep down, I think I knew my last game was my last game. I just held onto the hope that it wouldn’t be.”
The Padres brought Beaty in from the Dodgers in March 2022, sending prospect River Ryan back to Los Angeles. At the time, it looked like a reasonable move. Beaty had hit .262/.333/.425 with a 100 OPS+ for the Dodgers from 2019-21 and had carved out a useful role as a left-handed first baseman and corner outfielder.
The deal has since tilted hard in the other direction as Ryan developed into one of the sport’s top pitching prospects. In a 2024 interview, Padres president of baseball operations AJ Preller said Ryan was “probably one of those guys that you wish we had stayed a little longer with honestly because he’s done really well.”
Ryan was later included in the three-player trade that sent reigning two-time Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal to Los Angeles this year.
Beaty’s time in San Diego never got going. He hit .093 in 20 games for the Padres, going 4-for-43 before a shoulder injury in May 2022 knocked him off track. After he recovered, he spent all but three games the rest of the season in the minors.
San Diego designated him for assignment in September 2022, and he chose free agency soon after. He turned up again with the Royals in spring training the next year, then logged 30 games between Kansas City and San Francisco in 2023, hitting .230/.347/.295.
Beaty finished his pro career with 53 minor league games in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization in 2024 before his release in September.
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