The part to retired MLB All-Star Matt Carpenter’s career he still can’t believe
On June 8, 2009, Matt Carpenter played his final game for TCU, and he figured the final out concluded his career as a baseball player.
He had not hired an agent. He had not talked to a scout. He had earned his degree. He was 24. He was set to pursue a career coaching college baseball.
It’s June 2025, and Carpenter recently announced his retirement after his 14-year career in the major leagues. He lives in Fort Worth with his wife and their two young children.
“I was a major league player for 14 years,” he said this week in a phone interview. “That number still just doesn’t feel real.”
According to the Princeton Review, the average MLB career lasts 2.7 years. Other studies have shown the career runs 5.6 years. By either metric, Carpenter crushed the average.
As Carpenter looks ahead to the second chapter of his life, he does so in somewhat disbelief at the first part while looking ahead to what he eventually wants to do. For the time being, he enjoys being at home in June. This is the first summer he can ever recall in his life that did not include playing baseball.
“We are going on two summer vacations,” he said. “That is something I never done that. My dad was a high school baseball coach, and our summers were games. I loved it, don’t get me wrong, but this is something I am excited to be able to do. From the time I could walk, all I ever knew was baseball.”
The surreal detail to Matt Carpenter’s career
Of the many achievements Carpenter accumulated in his time with the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees and San Diego Padres, there is one that can’t be right.
“You need to look this up,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure I was never on a team that finished with a losing record. My dad and I talked about and neither of us could believe it.”
He is essentially correct.
From 2011 to 2021, when Carpenter played for the Cardinals, they were above .500 every season. They won the World Series, in ‘11, and seven other times reached the playoffs during in his first tenure in St. Louis.
In 2022, when Carpenter re-invented himself to have a highly productive season with the Yankees, they reached the American League Championship series. The following year, with the Padres, they finished 82-80.
And in his last season, with the Cardinals in 2024, they were four games over .500.
“Other than how long I played, of all the things I am most proud of, it’s that I never played on a losing team. We always finished with a winning record,” he said. “When I was at TCU, we never had a losing year. When I was in high school (at Elkins near Houston), we won every year and had two state titles.
“The only time I think I may have finished on a team with a losing record was maybe a fall Little League team.”
You’d have to be really nit picky to dispute this point, or a “seam head” sort to debate this.
Carpenter moved up so quickly through the Cardinals farm system he didn’t have time to realize that the teams he was playing for that summer, Palm Beach, Quad Cities and Batavia, weren’t very good. That 70-game stretch during his first year as a professional, in 2009, is the only time in his life when Matt Carpenter lost.
The three Class A teams he played for all finished with losing records. Most players, especially young ones, are typically oblivious to such facts. They’re priority is production, and moving up.
Wherever Carpenter played, they won.
What is next for Matt Carpenter
Although Carpenter’s first hope was to play his entire career with the Cardinals, he was at least able to finish his career with that organization by coming back for the 2024 season in a reserve role.
At 38, he also knew he was at the end.
“To be back in St. Louis and end it where it all started was pretty special. To finish in that uniform was a big deal to me,” he said. “At that point I felt the urge to be home with my kids. I didn’t want to miss out any more. They are at a fun age.”
With kids entering the fourth and third grade, Carpenter’s first goal is to be around them. He has no plans to move away from Fort Worth.
When the time is right, he would like to do what he originally intended to pursue when his TCU career ended. He wants to coach.
“I don’t know what the timing of that looks like. I have a love for the game and a passion,” he said. “I can help some people; coaching is in my blood. It was always something I wanted to do. the I always had that in my sights, to be a college coach.”
Because he has his college degree, and his extensive list of achievements as a player, he will be an attractive candidate to join a staff when he wants to pursue that path. He’s just not ready to do it yet.
The first thing he wants to live a summer without baseball for the first time in his life, after wrapping up a career he never expected in the first place.
This story was originally published June 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
