This post wasn’t meant to go out during spring training in 2025. In fact, Lucas Luetge’s retirement announcement was supposed to come much earlier. It was meant to happen before the Yankees ever called him up, before he wore the iconic pinstripes, and long before he was called on repeatedly to challenge Andrew Benintendi or close out games with a mega-save. His farewell was supposed to be posted before any of that ever happened.
But Luetge wasn’t ready to hit “send” just yet.
Last Thursday, Luetge shared an Instagram post revealing that he had finally come to terms with his career and was ready to retire after a remarkable late-career resurgence that felt like something out of a fairytale.
Luetge, a lefty, pitched for the Yankees in 2021 and 2022. But it was on April 3, when he took the mound in the Bronx—during a game still very much in the balance—that he ended a 2,170-day gap between big-league appearances. His first stint was with the Mariners from 2012-2015, followed by a second chapter with the Yankees in 2021-2022, with a lot of life in between.
After a solid debut season with Seattle in 2012 (3.98 ERA, 38 strikeouts in 40 2/3 innings), Luetge struggled in his sophomore year and lost favor with the Mariners’ front office. By 2015, he made just one appearance, throwing 2 1/3 scoreless innings on April 25. He spent much of that year in Triple-A, tossing 62 1/3 innings in 2014 and 50 in 2015.
The Mariners moved on, and so did the Angels, who briefly used him in 2016 for a series, but he didn’t get much more of a shot. He bounced around between the Reds and Orioles without success, and in 2018, he lost a season to Tommy John surgery. Despite remaining healthy after that, teams continued to pass him by. In 2020, he spent time at the alternate site, largely in silence, as he was overlooked by one franchise after another.
That was until the Yankees took a chance on him in 2021. Luetge arrived at camp as a longshot but quickly made himself indispensable. Over the next two seasons, he defied the odds, posting solid ERAs of 2.74 and 2.67 in 72 1/3 and 57 1/3 innings, respectively. While his WHIP ballooned in 2022, he remained a valuable member of the clubhouse and a reliable multi-inning reliever.
Luetge’s role was often in low-leverage situations, but he became a master at preserving leads that seemed safe but weren’t quite finished. It’s a tricky role—excel, and you move into higher-leverage spots; struggle, and you’re not trusted with any lead. But Luetge always managed to handle it with grace.
At the end of the 2022 season, the Yankees traded Luetge to Atlanta for a package that included Caleb Durbin, who would eventually become part of the Devin Williams trade. Luetge fought on, logging 13 2/3 innings with Atlanta and spending some time with Boston’s Triple-A team, the Woo Sox.
But now, the fight is over—and he’s emerged victorious. As Luetge wrote in his farewell post, “Every step of this journey has been a lesson in perseverance, faith, and love for the game.” His career may have come to an end, but the lessons he’s learned will live on forever.
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