Former Tigers trade acquisition abruptly retires after 12 MLB seasons

The Tigers are rolling this year, sharing a first-place lead in all of baseball with the Dodgers going into July, but we can't forget about the many years, not long ago, Detroit spent stuck in the doldrums. For basically all of 2015-2022, the Tigers put forward some of the most underwhelming teams the franchise has ever seen.

Granted, Tarik Skubal, Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter, and Spencer Torkelson were all a part of at least one of those latter squads, but it would take them a few years still to become who Tigers fans now know them to be.

In 2022, the Tigers' best player by bWAR was ... Javy Báez, at 2.4 — and he, Greene, and Eric Haase were the only position players to finish with a bWAR higher than 1.0. Most other position players from that year are best left forgotten, but one of them is calling it quits.

Per FanSided insider Robert Murray, former Tigers backup catcher Tucker Barnhart, who the Tigers acquired in a trade with the Reds in the 2021-2022 offseason, is retiring after 12 years in the major leagues. He was DFA'd by the Rangers on June 1.

Former Tigers catcher Tucker Barnhart retires after brief stint with Rangers

Barnhart's year with the Tigers was unremarkable, to say the least. He played in 94 games as backup catcher to Eric Haase and batted .221 with a .554 OPS, making it one of the worst seasons of his career. He was an above-average defensive catcher by some metrics, but it's hard to make an impression as a backup catcher, and even more so when the No. 1 guy was having one of the best seasons of his career (though that isn't saying much).

He became a free agent after the 2022 season and signed a two-year deal with the Cubs, but he was DFA'd in August 2023 and then signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in free agency. He bounced around a little more on minor league contracts, going to the Diamondbacks and then back to the Reds (who he'd won two Gold Gloves with in the first eight seasons of his career) before signing another MiLB deal with the Rangers.

He hit .231 with a .564 OPS for them in eight games before being DFA'd again on June 1. He cleared waivers, elected free agency, then signed another minor league deal with them a few days later, before deciding to hang his cleats up on June 30. He might not have made much of an impression in Detroit, but Tigers fans wish him a happy retirement.