Former Royals’ first-round pick Bubba Starling announces ‘bittersweet’ retirement

After a summer to remember, Royals minor-league outfielder Bubba Starling has decided to hang up his cleats.

Starling, who was chosen with the fifth overall pick in the 2011 MLB Draft out of Gardner Edgerton High School, announced his retirement in a Facebook post on Monday night.

“It’s bittersweet because sports have been my forever. My everyday. My everything, my whole life,” Starling wrote in the Facebook post. “And I am now retiring and will never play again. But I can’t wait for this next chapter of life!

“Thanks to everyone who supported me along the way! Thanks to the Royals for changing my life and giving me a chance at my dream! Onto the next...”

Former Fox 4 sports director Jason Lamb, who is at KY3, was the first to publicize Starling’s social media post.

Starling, 29, started the 2021 season at Class AAA Omaha before joining Team USA at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The U.S. team won the silver medal, but Starling didn’t go back to the Storm Chasers after returning to United States.

That means Starling closed the book on his baseball career by representing his country.

“I knew it was my dream to be out on a big-league field someday,” Starling wrote. “Spent almost two years in the big leagues. My last season I was in Omaha and had a chance to go play in the Olympics and play for Team USA and win a silver medal.

“It’s what every kid dreams of. Playing in the Olympics. I came home from it ... I knew life was gonna take me in another direction. After that, I knew I was done playing the game of baseball.

His pro baseball career started after he was a three-sport star at Gardner Edgerton. Starling was offered a scholarship to play quarterback at Nebraska but instead chose to sign with the Royals for a $7.5 million bonus.

Starling struggled at the plate and was sidelined by a number of injuries early in his pro career. He wasn’t promoted to Triple-A until 2016. But he turned a corner a few years ago and joined the Royals in 2019.

That season, Starling batted .215 with four home runs in 56 games, and he had five outfield assists. One of those was a 100.7-mph missile to catch a runner trying to score.

After appearing in 35 games with the Royals in the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season, he wasn’t part of the big-league team this year.

Starling walks away from baseball after batting .204 with nine home runs and four stolen bases in 91 career major-league games.

As he told The Star’s Vahe Gregorian in 2020, Starling made a personal life change in which he worried less about himself and focused more on what he could do for others.

“It’s more ‘one day at a time’ living,” Starling told Gregorian then. “One day at a time. How good can that one day be?”

After a decade as a pro athlete, those days won’t be filled with baseball now. But Starling, who was married earlier this month, offered advice to kids playing the game.

“(B)e the best you can be. Be a great teammate. Respect your parents. Respect your teammates,” he wrote. “I wouldn’t have been successful without my coaches or teammates along the way. They got me to where I wanted to be.”