Former St. John’s standout baseball player Joe Panik has retired from baseball after a successful career that spanned the better part of a decade in Major League Baseball.
The John Jay High School grad appeared in 818 games across eight years in the major leagues, highlighted by a World Series victory with the San Francisco Giants as a rookie in 2014.
Panik hit .305 after joining the club in June of that same year, finishing sixth in NL Rookie of the Year voting.
Panik was named an All-Star the following year and hit a career-best .312, slugging .455 and driving in 37 runs. In 2016, Panik earned the Gold Glove award for being the NL’s top defensive second baseman.
Panik was selected with the 29th overall pick of the 2011 draft, after hitting .370 in three years at St. John’s. He holds the second-highest career average in program history. As a junior in 2011, he earned All-American honors from the ABCA, Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball newspaper after hitting a career best .398 average.
He helped lead the Johnnies to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Big East Tournament title in 2010.
Panik signed to play for the New York Mets in 2019, before signing with the Toronto Blue Jays in early 2020. His playing career ended with the Miami Marlins last year at the age of 31.
Panik and his wife, Brittany, welcomed a daughter, Mikayla, in October of 2021.
