Former Ranger pitcher Ron Mahay retires

Former Ranger reliever Ron Mahay, who pitched for Texas from 2003-07, has retired at the age of 41.

Mahay was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 18th round of the 1991 draft as an outfielder, and crossed the picket lines as a replacement player in the spring of 1995, forever earning himself the label of "scab" and making him ineligible for membership in the MLBPA.

Mahay converted to pitching in 1996, and ended up pitching in the majors for Boston, Oakland, Florida, and the Cubs before being signed as a minor league free agent by the Rangers in December, 2002.

Mahay spent almost five years in the Rangers organization after that, logging 244 innings in relief and posting a 3.65 ERA. He had one disastrous season, in 2005, when he posted a 6.81 ERA in 35.2 innings and ended up getting sent to the minors for part of the season, but he ended up bouncing back and was, other than in 2005, a solid contributor for the Rangers during his time here.

Mahay, of course, is best known as being the second player, along with Mark Teixeira, that was sent to Atlanta in July, 2007, as part of the trade that brought Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Beau Jones to Texas.

In one of the weird quirks of baseball finances, while Baseball Reference shows Mahay earned more than $10 million over his major league career (their information is incomplete, but I'm guessing his total earnings were close to $12 million), the majority of that came from a 2 year, $8 million deal he signed near the end of his career with the Kansas City Royals after the 2007 season.

The Royals released him in August, 2009, before that contract was even up, and after that, Mahay signed with the Twins (twice), with the Dodgers, with the Diamondbacks, with the Cardinals, and the Reds, reaching the majors during that time only with the Twins, for whom he threw 9 innings in 2009 and 34 innings in 2010.