Brian Dozier announces retirement
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN – Former Twins infielder Brian Dozier announced today that he is retiring from baseball after a nine-year major league career, the first seven of which were spent in a Twins uniform.
The 33-year-old batted .248/.325/.441 (928-for-3742) with 593 runs scored, 202 doubles, 21 triples, 167 home runs, 491 RBI and 98 stolen bases in 955 games for the Twins from 2012-18. He participated in the 2014 Gillette Home Run Derby at Target Field, was an All-Star in 2015 and won his lone career Rawlings Gold Glove Award in 2017.
An eighth-round selection by the Twins in the 2009 First-Year Player Draft, Dozier came up through the system as a shortstop but shifted to second base prior to the 2013 season. During his Minnesota tenure, Dozier etched his name into the Twins’ record books in myriad ways, both on and off the field. His 167 homers are tops by a second baseman in club history, and he is one of two players in club history to record a 20 double/20 homer season at that position, doing so in four-straight years from 2014-17. His 2016 streak of 11 consecutive games with an extra-base hit is a Twins/Senators franchise record and tied with Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez for the second-longest streak in the majors since 2000, behind only Hall-of-Famer Chipper Jones’ 14-game run in 2006. Dozier’s 127 home runs from 2014-17 were sixth most in the American League in that span, trailing only Nelson Cruz (166), Edwin Encarnación (153), Josh Donaldson (140), Mike Trout (139) and Chris Davis (137). His career-high 42 home runs in 2016 made him the second Twin to ever hit the 40-homer plateau and matched Hall-of-Famer Rogers Hornsby for the second-highest single-season total by a second baseman in major league history (_Stats LLC_). Dozier batted first in 519 career games with the Twins, and his 28 leadoff homers remain a club record.
Dozier’s hustle on the field was matched by an electric personality off it that inspired camaraderie across the organization and the sport. Among other honors, he was the recipient of the 2013 Mike Augustin “Media Good Guy” Award by the Twin Cities Chapter of the BBWAA, the Twins’ 2014 Heart and Hustle Award by the MLB Players Alumni Association, the 2015 Carl R. Pohlad Award for Twins Outstanding Community Service and the 2016-17 Bob Allison Award for Twins leadership.
Dozier was traded to Los Angeles-NL on July 31, 2018, and spent the final years of his career in the National League with the Dodgers, Washington Nationals (2019), San Diego Padres (2020) and New York Mets (2020). He earned a World Series ring in 2019 with the Nationals, after recording his sixth career 20/20 season and hitting .238 (99-for-416) with 54 runs scored, 20 doubles, 20 homers and 50 RBI in 135 regular-season games for the club. He ends his career with a .244/.325/.441 (1055-for-4316) slash line in 1,144 career games.