As 2023 Comes to a Close, the Number of 2000s Players Continues to Rapidly Decrease

Almost exactly two years ago, I made note of a shocking trend: we were losing 2000s players at an alarming rate. And in the short time since the 2023 season ended, we’ve seen a number of high-profile retirements, which has made me want to look into the matter again.

But first, I wanted to quickly remind everyone of some basics. First, when I refer to “2000s Players”, I’m of course talking about players who debuted between 2000 to 2009, not just “any players who have debuted since 2000”. This topic is kind of a follow-up to something I looked at almost a decade ago, trying to predict who would be the final active player from the 1990s. Once we ran out of 1990s players, it seemed natural to move on to the next decade, so I figured I’d shelve the issue until around 2024 or so.

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Except when Buster Posey announced his surprise retirement back in 2021, I began poking around in Baseball-Reference and realized that the topic was coming up on us much quicker than I ever expected. You see, historically, “The Last Active Player from a Decade” has been shockingly predictable:


Last Player from the 1920s: Satchel Paige made it to 1965 if you count his comeback publicity stunt; if you only count regular players, Paige tied with Bobo Newsom (retired 1953)
Last Player from the 1930s: Early Wynn (1963)
Last Player from the 1940s: Minnie Miñoso (1980) if you count his comeback publicity stunts, otherwise Willie Mays (1973)
Last Player from the 1950s: Jim Kaat (1983)
Last Player from the 1960s: Carlton Fisk and Nolan Ryan (1993)
Last Player from the 1970s: Rickey Henderson and Jesse Orosco (2003)
Last Player from the 1980s: Jamie Moyer and Omar Vizquel (2012)


Maybe it’s just me, but I find that stability hilarious: for six straight decades, the last active player would hang up their cleats exactly 24 years after the decade ended. The 1980s saw that slip to 23 years, which is maybe a little unusual, but ultimately not really a meaningful difference.

…Except that, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe it was a sign of things to come? After all of that, our final 1990s players wound up being Adrián Beltré and Bartolo Colon, who both called it quits* after the 2018 season, or five years early if you go by that 24-year rule.

*Technically, Colon would go play in the Mexican League in 2021, but his MLB days ended in 2018.

And if you were hoping that 2000s players might prove to be a rebound here, you’re probably going to be disappointed; for as aggressive as the last decade was at pushing 1990s players out of the league, things are only looking worse for 2000s players this decade. In fact, we’ve generally been a year ahead of the already-accelerated schedule that decade was on:

Buster Posey's Retirement Accentuates the Fast-Shrinking Number of 2000s Players

I knew there were going to be a lot of shocking moves this winter, but I certainly didn’t predict Buster Posey retiring on the first official day of the offseason. The former MVP was set to start his thirteenth season next year just after his 35th birthday, but the longtime Giants catcher instead decided to turn down the option year on his contract, even after San Francisco picked it up. It’s especially surprising given how strong his 2021 season was (particularly after sitting out the 2020 campaign) but there’s something to be said for going out on a high note.

But perhaps the most surprising aspect, for me at least, was realizing that Posey was part of a dying breed: players who debuted in the 2000s.* Technically, Posey only played in seven games in the 2009 season, but it counts, and we need all the help we can get in this category. It doesn’t feel like it should be that rare quite yet; it wasn’t that long ago.

*“2000s” here refers to the first decade after 2000, which doesn’t have as clear a name as the 2010s or 2020s. Thus, I’ll just be sticking with “2000s” or “‘00s” for this piece.

And yet, as of 2021, MLB is already down in the double digits when it comes to players from the ‘00s who received any playing time. That feels a little shocking, right? I’m not alone here? We aren’t that far into the following decade yet, it’s still only 2021. This seemed like it was something worth looking into. After all, I have experience here; I wrote something a few years ago looking at who would be the final player from the 1990s (that answer ended up being a tie between Adrian Beltre and Bartolo Colon, by the way; both of them made it to 2018 in the Majors, although Colon continues playing internationally). How does the situation now compare to what I saw then?

I’ll need to do some adjusting, of course, since my last piece was in 2014, closer to the middle of the decade. But our 2021 total still feels abnormally low; going by a search on Baseball-Reference, there are only 75 active players who debuted in the 2000s. And even that feels like a generous ruling, given that the search turns up players who didn’t play in 2021 for a variety of reasons (including injuries like Justin Verlander and Cole Hamels, players who sat out like Homer Bailey and Chris Davis, as well as the suspended Robinson Cano). Even if you expand the search to include players who retired during the 2021 season but were active at some point, you pick up Jordan Zimmermann (2 games with the Brewers) and Jay Bruce (10 games with the Yankees), but that still only brings us to 77 ‘00s players in the 2021 season.

In comparison, there were still over 100 players from the 1990s still active for the 2011 season: 105 just counting players who debuted in 1990 or later, plus 1980s debuts Jamie Moyer and Omar Vizquel, who both lasted until the 2012 season. So it’s not just my memory, we do appear to be losing 2000s players faster than we did 1990s players (and 1980s ones, apparently?).