Another major league star who chose to retire after two years without the ball was 38-year-old Dominican left pitcher Francisco Liriano. He has played for six teams in his 14-year career, including the Twins, Pirates, Blue Jays, Tigers, Astros and White Sox.
Liriano first came to the United States as a minor league player for the Giants, and in 2003 came to the Twins in a trade involving six-time Star Game pitcher Joe Nathan and White Sox champion catcher AJ Pilginsky. In 2006, Liriano debuted at the peak, and in his rookie year, he was selected for the only Star Game of his career, and the season-end American League Rookie of the Year was selected for third place behind Justin Wieland and Jonathan Papburn.
The pitcher for the U.S. League Awards that year was Yuhan Santana, and when people thought Liriano would be the perfect successor to Santana, he suffered a fatal blow and went to the elbow ligament replacement surgery. After the return, the Liriano triple-striker number plummeted, and the K9 value fell from the original double digits to about 7. After a nightmarish 08 and 09 season, Liriano soared 201 strikeouts in 2010 in the 191.2 innings with a 3.62 ERA and a comeback of the year.
After a short loan for the White Sox, the Pirates signed him offseason on a two-year, $7 million contract, which was renewed for another three years for $39 million after expiration. The Signing of the Pirates proved prescient, with Liriano winning the second comeback of his career here and the Pirates breaking a 20-year playoff drought. At that time, the Pirates had young Gerry Gerry Cole and Charlie Morton in the squad, but the Pirates ace position was still Liriano's, wild card, he was knocked out of the 7.0 innings only four to knock out a single point, to help the team cross the same zone of the Reds.
In the middle of the 2017 season, Liriano was sent to the Astros to exchange the Blue Jays for Aoki Nobuki and Te oscar Hernandez, who was already a cowshed and a one-man left thrower. In the sixth and seventh games of the World Series, he only shot 0.1 innings in both appearances, and both times he cleanly solved the best rookie of the year, Cody Bellinger.
Liriano's career has fluctuated several times, and as a pitcher, he has 419 appearances in major leagues, including 300 starts, 1813.2 innings of pitching 1815 strikeouts, 112 wins, 4.15 ERA, and 3.88 FIP. Going through difficulties and then overcoming them is a hallmark of Liriano's career, and in his not short career, he has been selected for the Star Race, won the championship, and thrown a no-amper, and his career has been completed.
(Text/Geng Haoyang)