Kevin Pillar will continue his baseball journey as a player. The veteran outfielder was at some point in 2024 believed he was going to retire, but that clearly isn’t his final decision yet, as Pillar just signed a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers, the team announced on Sunday.
“The Texas Rangers today announced that the club has signed OF Kevin Pillar (#16) to a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training camp,” read a post on X (formerly Twitter) by the team’s communications department.
The 36-year-old Pillar, who had an offseason thumb surgery, also opened up about his decision to give baseball another go. Pillar has a chance to prove himself worthy of a spot in the big leagues again, as he’s been invited by the Rangers to spring training.
“Going through that process, rehabbing, being cleared and then starting to hit again, you start getting the itch again,” Pillar said, per Kennedi Landry of MLB.com).
“You start to realize, ‘I really do enjoy doing this. I like playing baseball.’ A lot of my talk of retiring last year came from being released early in the year. Then you’re not sure you’re gonna get a chance to play again. When you get a chance, you start thinking about the reality that not everyone gets to kind of choose when their career is over,” Pillar added.
Rangers become latest baseball stop for Kevin Pillar
In 2024, Pillar started the campaign with the Chicago White Sox before getting released in April. He then found his way to the Los Angeles Angels with whom he finished the season. Overall that year, Pillar hit .229/.291/.377 with eight home runs and 45 RBIs to go with 16 stolen bases in 100 games.
Although known mostly for his incredible defensive work in the outfield, Pillar could potentially help the Rangers hit better against lefties in 2025. He posted slashes of .310/.352/.500 opposite southpaws in 2024 when the Rangers ranked just 20th in the big leagues with a .238 batting average versus lefties. That season, Texas outfield players also posted just a 97 wRC+ against left-handed pitching.
Pillar played his first six-plus seasons in MLB with the Toronto Blue Jays before stints with the San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox, Colorado Rockies, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, White Sox and Angels.
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