Chipper Jones, though happy to in a playoff race, raises the possibility that he won’t play out the entirety of his recent three-year contract extension:
“When the contract’s up, I’ll probably be done,” he said Wednesday. “It could be earlier. You know what? My body will tell me. My mind will tell me. It’s been a long career, and my body tells the story. When I get to the point where I’m so mentally and physically fatigued, I’ll gladly ride off into the sunset and not look back.”
Chipper’s body tends to speak pretty loudly. Having followed him as a fan for as long as I have, my sense of him is that if he’s just suffering the normal aches and pains a near-40 year-old suffers, he’ll play out the deal with lots of days off and occasional DL visits. He probably won’t, however, put himself through surgeries or any real kind of rehab, and would glady walk away from a couple of million bucks if that was the choice.
Unlike Doug Glanville, Jones strikes me as the kind of guy who is probably looking forward to and will enjoy the hell out of retirement.