Pujols and how other great players made a comeback

In his first week in St. Louis in more than a decade, Pujols hit 17-5 and hit two home runs, the 680th and 681st of his career, the fifth most in history. Pujols is 15 home runs away from tying fellow countryman Alex Rodriguez (696) and 19 away from joining Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714) in the exclusive “700 Club”.

Since 1961, when the first expansion in the modern major leagues occurred, eight Hall of Fame players ended up playing for their original teams, having moved on to others. Only five others spent at least 10 years with other clubs before returning to their original homes to stay until their final games.

According to Elias Sports, more than a hundred players returned to their first teams to close out their careers since 1976, when Major League Baseball free agency began. Prior to that, it was less common for good players to change jerseys as has been the case over the past four decades.

Using Baseball-Reference’s version of Wins Above Replacement Level (WAR), these are the most productive players in the free agency era who ended their careers with the teams where they started, having made intermediate stops elsewhere.

1-Albert Pujols (99.6 WAR): The starter and designated hitter was Rookie of the Year (2001) and won his three Most Valuable Player awards (2005, 2008 and 2009) and was called up to nine of his 10 All-Star Games in the first 11 years of his career with the Cardinals. He signed a 10-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels that ended last year with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

2- Ken Griffey Jr. (83.8 WAR): Junior won 10 Gold Gloves, attended 10 All-Star Games and blasted 398 (of his 630 homers) with the Mariners from 1989-99. The big center fielder was traded prior to the 2000 season to the Cincinnati Reds, where his father played for most of his career. He played nine years with Cincinnati and briefly with the Chicago White Sox before returning to Seattle for the final two seasons of his career.

Griffey hit 19 home runs in 117 games with Seattle in 2009, but hit just .184 (98-18) with no home runs in 33 games in 2010. He surprisingly announced his retirement in a press release beginning in June of that year and in 2016 was elected to the Hall of Fame.

3- Pete Rose (79.6 WAR): The all-time hits king was a member of Cincinnati from 1963-1978, a stretch during which he was Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player and 12-time All-Star and won six career hits and three career batting titles. Rose then played five years with the Philadelphia Phillies and was with the Montreal Expos when he was traded back to Cincinnati to be manager/player and appear in the final 217 games of a 24-year career.

Rose, number one all-time in games, appearances, innings and hits (4,256) batted .303 with 2,165 runs scored, was banned from baseball in August 1989 on charges of betting on baseball games while playing for and managing the Reds. In 1991, the Baseball Hall of Fame formally voted to ban from exaltation those on baseball’s “permanently ineligible” list.

4- Reggie Jackson (74.0 WAR): Jackson made his major league debut in 1967, which was the Athletics’ final year in Kansas City. He helped the Athletics win the World Series in three consecutive years (1972-73-74), won the American League Most Valuable Player in 1973 and appeared in six All-Star Games before being traded to the Baltimore Orioles in 1976.

“Mister October” won two more rings (1977-78) with the New York Yankees and was World Series MVP for the second time in his career, participated in his 13th and 14th All-Star Games as a member of the California Angels and then returned to Oakland for a farewell season in 1987. He hit 576 home runs in 21 years and was elected to Cooperstown in 1993.

5- Tom Glavine (73.9 WAR): Glavine had 242 wins, eight All-Star Game appearances, a World Series ring and a Cy Young Award with the Atlanta Braves when he signed with the New York Mets as a free agent prior to the 2003 season. The 305-game winning left-hander played for five years with the Mets, but returned to Atlanta, where he appeared in the final 13 games of his career in 2008. He was elected to Cooperstown in 2014.

6- Gary Carter (70.2 WAR): The Hall of Fame catcher played with the Montreal Expos for the first 11 years of his career and after stops with the Mets, San Francisco Giants and Dodgers, returned to the Canadian franchise for a 19th and final career season in 1992. An 11-time All-Star and winner of five Silver Bats and three Gold Gloves, he entered the Hall of Fame in 2003. He was a champion with the 1986 Mets.

7- Don Sutton (66.7 WAR): The right-hander played for the Dodgers from 1966 to 1980 before bouncing around four clubs over the next six years and returning to Los Angeles just in time to say goodbye in a championship season, 1988. Sutton had 233 of his 324 wins in 16 years with the Dodgers, an emblem with which he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998.

8- Andy Pettite (60.7 WAR): The left-hander made his major league debut in 1995 and was a member of the last great Yankees dynasty that won the World Series in four of five tries between 1996 and 2001. Pettitte played with New York for nine seasons, signed for three years with the Houston Astros as a free agent and then returned to the Yankees in the same capacity, never to leave again.

In all, Pettitte wore pinstripes in 15 of 18 seasons, earned 219 of his 256 wins and pitched 2,976 of his 3,316 career innings.

9- Ichiro Suzuki (60.0 WAR): In the first 10 years of his career, the Japanese outfielder was elected to the All-Star Game, won the Gold Glove and secured the first all-time Japanese induction into the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.

Ichiro, who hit more than 3,000 hits in his career and will debut on the Cooperstown jury ballot in 2025, played with the Seattle Mariners from 2001 to 2012, when he was sent to the Yankees. He played nearly six years with Yankees and Miami Marlins and returned in 2019 to Seattle for the sole purpose of playing in the season-opening series against Oakland in Tokyo, Japan.

10- Tany Perez (54.0 WAR): The Hall of Fame Cuban starter pitched for Cincinnati for most of his 23-year major league career. Perez went to seven All-Star Games and was part of a magnificent Reds team that won the World Series in 1975 and 1976 and went on to play for Montreal, Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies for seven years.
Perez returned to Cincinnati for the final three seasons of his career (1984-86). He retired with 1,652 RBIs and was elected to Cooperstown in 2000.

11- Orel Hershiser (51.4 WAR): Hershiser was drafted by the Dodgers in the 1979 collegiate draft and made his major league debut in 1983. “Bulldog” won the National League Cy Young in 1988, when he was the most important player in the Dodgers’ World Series win. After 12 seasons, he left for the Cleveland Indians as a free agent and also pitched for the Giants and Mets before returning to Los Angeles for his final pitching stint in 2000.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS: Torii Hunter (50.7) with Minnesota Twins; Matt Holliday (44.5) with Colorado Rockies; Al Leiter (42.5),with Yankees; Harold Baines (38.8), with Chicago White Sox; Russell Martin (38. 8), with Dodgers; Kirk Gibson (38.4), with Detroit Tigers; Barry Zito (33.1), with Athletics; Brian McCann (32.0), with Braves; Kerry Wood (26.8), with Chicago Cubs; and Joe Nathan (26.4), with Giants.