Veteran right-hander Jesse Chavez, a 41-year-old pitcher and multiple-time Texas Ranger, has officially announced his retirement from Major League Baseball.
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Chavez wraps up a professional career that spanned an impressive 18 seasons — a notable accomplishment for someone who entered the league as a longshot. Selected in the 42nd round of the 2002 MLB Draft by the Texas Rangers, Chavez was never a top prospect and struggled early in his career to find sustained success at the major league level. By the end of the 2012 season, when he was 28 years old, Chavez had already suited up for five different teams and carried a 5.99 ERA across 177 big league innings. Interestingly, none of those teams were the Rangers — they had traded him in 2006 to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for Kip Wells.
Despite that early detour, Chavez would go on to pitch for the Rangers multiple times later in his career. He first suited up for Texas in 2018 before being dealt midseason to the Chicago Cubs. He returned to Arlington for the 2019 and 2020 seasons and was also part of the team’s spring training roster in 2024, though he didn’t make the Opening Day squad. Instead, he returned to the Atlanta Braves — one of the nine teams he pitched for in his long and winding journey through the majors.
Chavez finishes his career with a 51–66 record, a 4.27 ERA, and 1,142 innings pitched. His ERA+ of 98 indicates he was nearly league-average over the long haul. While the list of teams he played for officially totals nine, that number doesn’t fully reflect the number of times he was traded, released, signed, or reacquired throughout a career filled with twists, turns, and persistence. His longevity and adaptability made him a respected journeyman and a valuable presence in many clubhouses across two decades of baseball.
