The Cubs have announced that Anthony Rizzo will retire as a Cub and will be honored this Saturday at Wrigley Field as the club hosts the Rays. He will also serve as an ambassador for the organization. Jesse Rogers of ESPN was among those to relay the news.
Rizzo, now 36, was part of a few different organizations in his career but will always be primarily known as a Cub. He spent the bulk of his career, including essentially all of his prime, as a Cub. That stretch saw him emerge as a core piece as the team became a regular contender in the last half of the previous decade. The highlight of that stretch was the 2016 club, which won the World Series, breaking a 108-year drought.
Before that legendary run, Rizzo had to pass through a few other places first. He was drafted by the Red Sox out of high school back in 2007. After a few years in Boston’s minor league system, he was flipped to the Padres as one of the players in the December 2010 deal which sent Adrián González to the Sox.
Rizzo got to make his big league debut with the Friars in 2011 but didn’t hit the ground running. He stepped to the plate 153 times over 49 games but struck out 30.1% of the time and produced a .141/.281/.242 line.
Going into 2012, the Padres decided to go in a different direction. They sent Mat Latos to the Reds for four players, one of whom was Yonder Alonso. With Alonso set to cover first base in San Diego, they then sent Rizzo and right-hander Zach Cates to the Cubs for righty Andrew Cashner and outfielder Kyung-Min Na.
More to come.