Brewers’ Jake Bauers Explains Why He Never Followed Through On Mlb Retirement

One of baseball’s biggest surprises this season has been the emergence of Jake Bauers. The 30-year-old has been a key piece for a Milwaukee Brewers team that finished with the best record in MLB. 

The Brewers finished the regular season 103-59, earning their first 100-win season in franchise history. 

Bauers put together a remarkable season, slashing .266/.389/.484 with 26 home runs and a 143 wRC+, good for second in the National League behind likely MVP Pete Crow-Armstrong. Bauers has undoubtedly been one of the best hitters in all of baseball, helping to anchor the middle of the Brewers’ order and leading the team with an OPS of .874. 

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What makes Bauers’ breakout season more fascinating is how close he came to never having it. 

Ready to Walk Away

After the 2024 postseason, Bauers was mentally exhausted following years of bouncing around different organizations and struggling to find any consistent success at the major league level. He had already decided his baseball career was over, and even called his agent to tell him that his pinch-hit home run in Game 3 of the 2024 Wild Card Series against the New York Mets would be the final swing of his MLB career. 

Thankfully, a major change in his personal life gave him a reason to keep playing.

According to an article by Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bauers planned to step away while his wife, Lauren, returned to teaching full-time. Just three days later, Lauren told Bauers she was pregnant with their second child.

Change of Plans

“She tells me she’s pregnant,” Bauers recalled. “Obviously, she wasn’t going back to work, so we decided I was going to keep playing.”

In Hogg’s article, Bauers summed up the practical reason for his return in just four words.

“We needed health insurance,” he said. 

That decision led Bauers back to Milwaukee, where he signed a minor-league deal and eventually worked his way back onto the roster and became one of the Brewers’ most productive hitters.

Now, instead of being a stay-at-home dad, he is preparing to face the San Diego Padres in the NLDS.

After a career year, Bauers is positioned to enter free agency with far more value than he could have imagined two years ago.

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