Four days after the Mets’ season ended, Michael Cuddyer had surgery to repair a core muscle injury, and in the following days he started thinking about retirement. His first season with the Mets had been marred by knee and wrist injuries, too. Over the last four years, he missed nearly 40 percent of his teams’ regular-season games because of injury.
Cuddyer, 36, announced his retirement on Saturday in an essay for The Players’ Tribune, even though he had a year remaining on his Mets contract.
“It wasn’t just the D.L. stints,” Cuddyer said in a conference call with reporters on Saturday.