Retirement of Lou Collier

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Ottawa Lynx Press Release: Lynx OF Lou Collier announced his retirement today, ending his 14-year professional baseball career. Collier, 33, retires with a career .297 Minor League batting average, spanning 14 seasons and more than 3,800 at-bats. He made his Major League debut in 1997 with Pittsburgh and had a .241 average with eight home runs and 78 runs batted in over 315 Major League games with the Pirates, Brewers, Expos, Red Sox and Phillies. Collier previously played for the Lynx in 2002. He hit .313 with 8 HR and 74 RBI in 132 career games with the Lynx.

6 thoughts on “Retirement of Lou Collier”

  1. Okay, I’ve been following each of the Phillies’ minor league teams pretty carefully this year and in years past and I am coming to the firm conclusion that the cupboard is pretty bare. The organization’s position players are, as a whole, completely abysmal. There’s basically no one at Double A or Triple A that appears to have a good shot of being a very good major league player. I am also disappointed in what appears to be the lackluster quality of pitching prospects that appeared to be strong last year, but now appear to just have been starting or placed in the wrong level where they could overmatch the competition. Yes, there are a few possible suspects out there (Cardenas, Zagurski, Happ, Mathieson [when he recovers], etc. . . ), but, overall, its a bleak picture. Where’s are the future stars?

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  2. Well, it’s tough to say. It’s not really surprising that the majority of the Phillies legit prospects are in Low A and High A, as we didn’t have great drafts in 2003 and 2004. Our 2005 draft looks solid as far as pitching, and 2006 was a nice draft with Drabek and Cardenas. Only the top 5 or 6 systems in baseball have multiple “stars”, and a lot of those teams are graduating their prospects like the Phillies did over a 3 year period with Utley, Howard, etc etc. Give it time. At the end of the year, we’ll have a better idea of which guys stepped forward, and which guys took a step back. The draft is the single biggest way to fix an ailing farm system, as the Yankees and Red Sox have shown in the last 2 years. The key is spending money there. The Phillies spent more than average in 2006, and hopefully they follow suit in 2007.

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  3. How often do guys retire in April and May? First Calloway and now Collier. Is there something the Phils are doing here that prompts these moves? I guess it these guys were hurt it would make sense.

    As for prospects in the AA or AAA level — Jaramillo showed some flashes in the AFL, Spring Training and early this AAA season. He’s been in a horrible slump but he might come back to prospect status.

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  4. “How often do guys retire in April and May? First Calloway and now Collier. Is there something the Phils are doing here that prompts these moves? I guess it these guys were hurt it would make sense.”
    It’s an interesting question you raise. Assuming they’re not
    hurting, I wonder how inspiring it is to play in frigid Ottawa
    (though warmer now) before home crowds of 1,000 or less–on a
    team that is fighting to reach .500. After all those years, it
    might be difficult to get up in the morning and get too fired up
    about another day at the old ball yard.

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  5. Sarge,

    Also interesting that both Calloway and Collier played in Ottawa before with the Expos organization. In fact they were team mates there in 2002.

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