No Fooling—Former Cardinals Pitcher Lance Lynn Announces Retirement

On his wife’s podcast, Lance Lynn made it official on Tuesday.

Unless it’s an elaborate April Fools prank, the longtime veteran pitcher has announced his retirement from Major League Baseball. Lynn spent the 2024 season with the St. Louis Cardinals, grinding through knee troubles to perform capably with a 3.84 ERA in 117.1 innings.

Despite some off-season rumblings that teams were interested in signing Lynn as a late-inning reliever or closing pitcher, nothing ultimately materialized on that front.

With spring training in the rearview mirror and the regular season underway across MLB, Lynn has apparently decided that his current position—on the couch, as he joked with his wife in the podcast—is where he intends to remain.

In the latest episode of the Dymin in the Rough podcast, Lynn referenced the process throughout the off-season, stating that despite some interest with various teams, the necessary contract details didn’t ultimately come to fruition.

“There was some interest from teams here and there,” Lynn said in the episode, which is available on YouTube. “Money didn’t work out. Now you’re looking at, the season’s started. I’ve really enjoyed not being there. That’s kind of weird to say—I’m always going to miss the teammates, competing, stuff like that, but I’ve not missed being there everyday and being gone from home.”

Lynn referenced the way things ended with the Cardinals in his final appearance last season as one element of walking away that gives him peace about his retirement decision. In that final matchup last September, Lynn twirled six innings of one-run baseball in a win over the Pirates—a satisfying way to go out, on his terms.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to try to keep going and have it end differently or have the last one be different than that,” Lynn said in the episode. “Retiring a Cardinal, last Major League game in Busch Stadium, with the whole family there—let’s call it.”

2024 was a season in which Lynn crossed a number of key career milestones off his bucket list—2,000 innings, 2,000 strikeouts and a number of Cardinal milestones, including his 1,000th strikeout with St. Louis. 

Lynn also mentioned that one of the few milestones he had his eye on that he wasn’t able to achieve last season in St. Louis was the 150-wins mark for his MLB career (he’s sitting on 143). 

But as he rationalized through that desire, he realized not returning for another season ensures that he avoids another milestone—one that would not have been as enjoyable.

“The way I see it is, I’m at 99 losses. So I don’t want to hit a hundred. So, yeah, I think we’re good,” Lynn added with a laugh.

Naturally, when we hear news of a prominent Cardinal calling it a career, the next topic that comes to mind is that player's viability for the Cardinals Hall of Fame some day.

Lynn’s case for a red jacket down the road is a compelling one. A fan favorite in St. Louis, Lynn also has a number of key statistics that place him prominently among the franchise ranks—Lynn ranks sixth in Cardinals history with 1,028 strikeouts while wearing the birds on the bat, for example.

If he ever finds his way onto the fan-vote ballot for the Cardinals Hall of Fame, I don’t think anyone will be particularly surprised to see him there—unlike how Tony LaRussa felt when he saw Lynn on the mound during an infamously errant pitching change in the 2011 World Series.