Rockies star Charlie Blackmon retires after 14 MLB seasons

The Rockies' most productive player of the last decade says goodbye to baseball.

Charlie Blackmon, a four-time All-Star who won the NL batting title in 2017, announced Monday that he will retire at the end of this season after spending his entire 14-year MLB career in Denver.

“As a kid, you play the game because you love it, like nothing else matters. I still play the game that way, but I don't feel like a kid anymore,” the 38-year-old bearded outfielder wrote in an Instagram post. “My perspective has changed. I've been fortunate to call the city of Denver and the Colorado Rockies my baseball home for my entire career. I'm grateful for the support of this organization, my teammates, and most importantly, the Rockies fans. It's with a grateful heart and a career full of memories that I'm choosing a new path.”

Blackmon was selected by the Rockies in the second round out of Georgia Tech in 2008 and enters the final six games of his career – all at home – with a career .292 average, .831 OPS, 226 home runs, 797 RBIs, 991 runs and 333 doubles.

The numbers show that he clearly benefited from playing at Coors Field.

In 796 career home games, Blackmon posted a .329 batting average, .939 OPS, 133 home runs and 477 RBIs, while in 822 career away games, he posted a .256 batting average with a .722 OPS, 93 home runs and 320 RBIs.

Blackmon was named an All-Star for the first time in his first season as a full-time starter in 2014, but will be most remembered for his dominant four-year stretch from 2016 to 2019.

In 2016, he hit a .324 batting average with a .933 OPS, 29 home runs and 82 RBIs, and followed that up with a monster season in 2017, winning the batting title with a .331 average and leading the majors in hits (213), runs (137), plate appearances (725), triples (14) and total bases (387). That season, he posted career-highs of 37 home runs and 104 RBIs, finished fifth in the race for NL MVP, and led the Rockies to the playoffs for the first time in his career; they lost to the Diamondbacks in the wild-card game.

Blackmon led Colorado back to the postseason in 2018 after batting .291 with an .860 OPS, 29 home runs and 70 RBIs. They beat the Cubs in the wild-card game before being swept by the Brewers in the NLDS in Blackmon's final postseason appearance, while the Rockies went back to the cellar, bottoming out last year with their first 100-loss season. They are 60-96 heading into their final six games this season.

His last All-Star season was 2019, when he batted .314 with a .940 OPS, 32 home runs and 86 RBIs.

Blackmon has a batting average of .249 with 11 home runs and 48 RBIs this season.

“When Charlie told me of his plans to retire, I got a little emotional, as I'm sure many fans will feel when they hear the news that one of the greatest Rockies of all time will no longer be on the field,” Rockies owner Dick Monfort said in a statement. “Charlie's passion and dedication to the sport of baseball, this organization and our great fans was evident every day and I can't thank him enough for putting his heart and soul into every game and every at-bat during his 14 years here. Charlie is a Rockie through and through.”