About a week after signing a minor-league contract with the Braves, veteran catcher Tyler Flowers decided to end his playing career.
Flowers announced his retirement to MLB.com on Friday, citing the discomfort from three degenerative discs in his back. The Braves responded with a tweet thanking Flowers and wishing him “all the best in your retirement.”
Flowers, 35, played 12 seasons in the major leagues, including the past five with the Braves.
“I’m glad that he can go out on his terms and announce his retirement,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said Friday. “You don’t appreciate guys like that enough until you don’t have them. ... The presence he had in the clubhouse and the stability he added and the professionalism, he had a really strong, good career. He’s a wonderful person and carried himself as a pro all the time.
“Hopefully he stays around and helps us out.”
Flowers became a free agent after the 2020 season and didn’t sign with any team until reaching the minor-league deal with the Braves last week.
He ends his career with a .237 batting average, 86 home runs and a .710 OPS in 802 MLB games and a reputation as one of the game’s best pitch-framers.
Flowers, a native of Roswell, was drafted by the Braves in 2004 and 2005, but was traded to the Chicago White Sox before reaching the majors. The Braves reacquired him as a free agent in December 2015. He played in 371 games for the Braves across the 2016-20 seasons.
Notes from Friday:
-- After playing the final two innings of Thursday’s game in center field, his first time at that position professionally, the Braves’ Ehire Adrianza has played every position defensively except catcher in his major-league career. That includes two games in which he pitched for Minnesota.
-- The Braves won’t face Brewers ace Corbin Burnes in the three-game series that began Friday night in Milwaukee. Burnes has a 1.57 ERA, 58 strikeouts and one walk in 34-1/3 innings this season.
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