Retirement rumors swirling around former Guardians first-round pick

There were multiple moments during Bradley Zimmer’s tenure with the Guardians where it looked like he was going to be a piece of the team’s long-term core. 

There were plenty of spectacular catches, ranging from his leaping catch against Lorenzo Cain in August 2017 to his fantastic running catch against Paul Goldschmidt in 2021. 

There was his 471-foot home run against the Reds in 2021 that scraped the trees in front of Heritage Park and was rivaled only by Jim Thome. 

But all of those moments ended up being blips on the radar of Zimmer’s MLB journey, as he only hit .228 across a five-year career in Cleveland before the Guardians traded him to the Blue Jays at the start of the 2022 season. 

Zimmer’s name popped up in news reports again this offseason after the Twitter account "Phillies Tailgate" tweeted that that Zimmer has retired from professional baseball. The news hasn’t been confirmed by Zimmer or any other official sources. He didn’t play at any level of affiliated ball in 2025. 

If Zimmer has in fact retired, his career still stands as the ultimate “what if”, as he had all the tools needed to succeed in MLB but was robbed of a chance to do so largely because of injuries. 

Bradley Zimmer stands as one of the biggest “what ifs” in recent Cleveland baseball history 

Cleveland selected Zimmer with the No. 21 pick in the 2014 MLB Draft  before making his big league debut in 2017. He ended up putting together a solid rookie season (.241 batting average, 8 HR, 39 RBI, 18 steals), but missed the final month of the season with a broken hand — which ended up serving as some foreshadowing for the rest of his career. 

He started 2018 as the Guardians’ starting center fielder but was demoted to Triple-A Columbus halfway through the season before undergoing shoulder surgery; Zimmer only ended up playing in 63 games across the 2018, ‘19 and ‘20 seasons due to injuries and underperformance. 

He managed to get in 99 games in 2021 and showed flashes (his aforementioned home run to center field stands out as one of the highlights from that season), but in the end it wasn’t enough for the Guardians to continue to think about him as a part of their core. 

The Guardians traded him to the Blue Jays at the start of the 2022 season in large part so they could free up right field for Steven Kwan. Zimmer played in 77 games for the Blue Jays before being DFA’d and claimed by the Phillies, where he played in nine games. The Phillies then cut him loose and reunited with the Blue Jays for a second time. 

That ended up being the last MLB action he saw, as he spent 2023 in the minors with the Dodgers and Red Sox and 2024 with the Rockies. 

While Zimmer didn’t end up becoming the kind of player that he was expected to be, he still put together a career that featured some highlights.