On Wednesday, 28-year-old White Sox rookie slugger Yermin Mercedes posted “It’s over” to Instagram, and said he was walking away from baseball “for a while.” Some took that as a permanent and decided retirement, but White Sox manager Tony La Russa told reporters after their game Wednesday that he planned to reach out to Mercedes. And on Thursday, Mercedes deleted his prior post and posted this phoenix with an “I’m back” message:
View this post on Instagram
Most of that version is in Spanish, but the ” God bless y’all🙏🏽 I love everybody I’m Back ⚾️” at the end is quite clear. And here’s a translated version of the first part, via Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic:
Yermin Mercedes has deleted his retirement IG post and instead posted this. pic.twitter.com/GeHgHujhRQ
— Britt Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli) July 22, 2021
James Fegan of The Athletic added that Mercedes is in uniform with the Triple A Charlotte Knights roster Thursday night:
White Sox say Yermín Mercedes is on the active roster with the Charlotte Knights and in uniform at their game tonight in Durham
— James Fegan (@JRFegan) July 22, 2021
It’s easy to understand Mercedes’ frustrations here. He got off to an amazing start this year, hitting .415/.455/.659 through April, but slumped after that, hitting .196/.264/.272 from the start of May until he was sent down to Triple A last month, reducing his season slash line to .271/.328/.444. And in May, he also wound up being called out by La Russa for swinging on a 3-0 count in a blowout game and hitting a home run. Mercedes was doing all right in Triple A, hitting .309/.377/.655, but a callup didn’t seem imminent for him, especially with prospects s Jake Burger and Gavin Sheets already called up and with stars Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert on track to return from injury. And at 28, he doesn’t have as much time left to wait as younger players, and going back to the minors (where he’s played since 2011 in the Washington, Baltimore, and White Sox organizations).
Still, it’s pretty interesting to see a player definitively state “I’m done” and “walking away,” to see lots of coverage of that as a full retirement, and to see that player then reverse his decision the next day. Of course, people can change their mind, especially about a decision as big as that, and maybe the situation changed; maybe the White Sox management team offered Mercedes some more support or some more discussion of their plans for him. At any rate, he went from “I’m done” to “I’m back” in a day. (And he’s not the first Chicago and White Sox figure to use “I’m back.”)
[Britt Ghiroli on Twitter, Yermin Mercedes on Instagram]
