Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira announces retirement

Mark Teixeira, who played a crucial role in the New York Yankees' 27th and most recent World Series title, on Friday announced his retirement effective at the end of this season, according to the team.

Teixeira, 36, is in the final year of an eight-year, $180 million contract that he signed during a transformative off-season with the Yankees.

The switch-hitting first baseman went on to lead the American League in home runs and RBI in the 2009 season, which culminated in the Yankees' only World Series title this century. He finished second in MVP voting that year, but has been on a downward plane, his contract emblematic of the Yankees' deterioration into a collection of high-priced, declining players.

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This year, Teixeira is batting .198 with 10 home runs in just 77 games, as he’s missed significant time with an articular cartilage tear in his right knee. A wrist injury in 2013 limited him to just 15 games, and a renaissance year in 2015 — Teixeira made his third All-Star team, hit 31 homers and produced a .906 OPS — was cut short by a right shin fracture suffered in August.

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Still, the subpar and injury-riddled conclusion to his career is outweighed by nearly a decade of elite production.Teixeira enters the final weeks of his career with 404 career home runs, a .361 on-base percentage and .872 on base plus slugging.

Drafted fifth overall in 2001, Teixeira debuted on opening day 2003 and never looked back, hitting 26 homers in his rookie year and a career-high 43 with 144 RBI in 2005. In nearly five seasons in Texas, he hit 153 home runs, produced a .901 OPS and a 128 OPS-plus.

His trade from the rebuilding Rangers to the contending Atlanta Braves was a crucial mark in both franchises’ history, as the Rangers replenished their organization with their return of shortstop Elvis Andrus and pitchers Neftali Feliz and Matt Harrison. He also played a half-season with the Los Angeles Angels, who lost in the first round of the 2008 playoffs, setting up a fierce bidding war in the offseason for Teixeira’s services.

Eventually, the Yankees reeled him in, outbidding the Angels, Baltimore Orioles and other clubs as part of a winter haul that included pitcher CC Sabathia (seven years, $161 million) and A.J. Burnett (five years, $82.5 million). The trio lifted the Yankees to a World Series title, but they haven’t returned to the Fall Classic since.

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Now, after last week’s sell-off at the trade deadline — the franchise’s first since 1985 — a youth movement followed by a likely free agent flurry in coming seasons marks a rebuild of sorts.

That rebuild won't include Alex Rodriguez, who, at 41, has been only slightly more productive than Teixeira this season, with a .204 average and nine home runs, leaving him five shy of 700 for his career, and publicly acknowledged the Yankees could release him this season. Rodriguez is under contract for $21 million in 2017, meaning he'd forfeit that money should he retire.

Teixeira, with his contract expiring after this year, had no such quandary. So he decided to step away and end any ambiguity about his future before the season runs out.

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