“How many individuals are in the top 1% of anything? If you’re a Stanford graduate and you made it to the major leagues, who’s complaining about that?” Michael Taylor told me in 2013. He retired yesterday.

Taylor was once the darling of prospect hounds. He ranked as high as 29th overall on Baseball America’s top 100, and was the third-best prospect on the Phillies before he was traded to Oakland. He was only given 114 plate appearances in the big leagues and is only 29 years old. We might not really know what Michael Taylor’s true talents look like.

The player agreed, even when we talked two years ago. “It’s a tough thing to quantify — how many of my at-bats came pinch-hitting against the closer or an ace after not getting many at-bats or not being in the big leagues period. I don’t think I’ve ever played two games in a row, maybe in 2011 once,” he said. “16 plate appearances in three years.”

Maybe things would be different if he’d been given more chances. “I’m not the only guy who’s ever been that up and down guy. Had Alex Gordon not gotten the opportunity he got, we would never have figured out how good a player he was, since the first couple of years he struggled,” Taylor pointed out. Steamer still thinks Taylor’s bat could be just about league average, and the former center fielder is no slouch on defense. Maybe he could be someone’s fourth outfielder, right now.

But if you think that’s a woe is me attitude coming from the former Stanford graduate, you’re wrong. “Really all you can do is deal with the circumstances you have and try to play as long as you can and hope that something that will come out that allows to get more time. It’s hard, there’s only 750 spots in the world,” he said the day before a start in late 2013.

As a Stanford graduate that is comfortable talking in analytics and has a player’s feel for the game, he has options. But in late 2012, he wanted to point out that having options doesn’t mean he “loves the game any less” than a graduate from another school.

And he wasn’t looking beyond the game, even as the game allowed him precious few major league chances. “I don’t think I have a set time in mind, I’m going to do this for this long. I just try to enjoy every day. Life is short — that’s a cliche — but life in this game is short. Even the guys that are stars and play, they play for 15 years,” he said in Spring Training in 2013.

What’s next? Over the years, we’ve talked about broadcasting, management, and coaching. “I’ve spent a lot of my life in this game, and I have a pretty good base of knowledge about it. It would be something I would investigate, but getting into a front office is also something that’s very difficult to do, and options are limited. My goal is to cross that bridge when I get to it,” he said in 2013.

Now it’s time to cross that bridge. Taylor said on the phone that he began the process of “reconnecting with the Stanford network” by going back to finish his degree last fall. Now he’s finding that some of the things he did to be a baseball player — “getting ready to play every day, developing skills and talents, and dealing with failure” — are actually transferrable to a new career. He’s excited for an opportunity in sales and marketing, most likely, wherever the job takes him. He once got paid $800 a month to play in Pennsylvania, he joked. His (expecting) wife will be ready to move once again, particularly since the paycheck will be be bigger.

Maybe Michael Taylor didn’t get as long a look as his talents suggested he should. Or maybe Michael Taylor was just one of the 800 best players in the world, and not the top 750. Either way, he’s not bummed about it, so don’t feel bad for him.

“As long as I can have an opportunity to play and have a uniform, and have an opportunity, a chance to play in the big leagues, you can’t really beat that lifestyle and that accomplishment,” he said back in 2013. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good at anything else as I am at this, and that’s okay.”