Professional Career
With the Milwaukee Brewers, Cirillo collected a .300 batting average or better for three seasons, including a career-high .326 in 1999. The same year, he added 198 hits (also a career-high) with 15 home runs and 88 RBI. His most productive season came in 2000 with the Colorado Rockies, when he posted career-highs in RBI (115), runs (111) and doubles (53); finished with 195 hits, and matched his personal-best .326 average.
On December 16, 2001, the Rockies traded Cirillo to the Seattle Mariners for Denny Stark, Brian Fuentes, and José Paniagua. Posting the lowest BABIP since his rookie season he was ineffective with the bat but provided strong defensive contributions while in Seattle, ranking by UZR the second best thirdbaseman in the American League in 2002. In 2003 he continued to provide above average defense but again posted the lowest BABIP of his career (.226 compared to a .320 career average)
He was traded to the San Diego Padres before the 2004 season, but was inactive most of the year with a wrist injury. He made history by becoming Randy Johnson's 4,000th strikeout victim on June 29, 2004.
Rejoining the Milwaukee Brewers in 2005, Cirillo saw a resurgence in his stroke while continuing his solid defense posting wOBA's of .355 in 2005 and .344 in 2006.
Cirillo signed a one-year contract with the Minnesota Twins in December 2006. He did not finish the season with the Twins and was claimed off waivers by the Diamondbacks on August 3, 2007. Cirillo stated that he would most certainly retire at the end of the 2007 season. He made the first pitching appearance of his career on August 20, 2007, against Milwaukee. He pitched one inning and gave up two walks and no runs while striking out one player, former Diamondback Craig Counsell. "He's way nastier than I thought he would be," said Bill Hall, who worked one of the walks. "I was shocked when I got up there. He's got a knuckleball, a slider, he was throwing some changeups. Those pitches make 84, 83 look pretty hard. I heard he was a better pitcher in college than he was a hitter."
Before the 2007 NLDS, Cirillo held one of baseball's most unwanted records. He had played in 1,617 regular season games, but never in the postseason. When his team made the playoffs, the title was passed to Damion Easley of the Mets who finished the 2008 season having played 1,706 straight games without a playoff berth.
Cirillo was hired by Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to be one of their scouts for 2012 season..
Read more about this topic: Jeff Cirillo
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