Ian Desmond

Ian Morgan Desmond (born September 20, 1985) is an American professional baseball infielder and outfielder for the Colorado Rockies of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played for the Washington Nationals and Texas Rangers. Desmond is a three-time Silver Slugger Award winner and a two-time MLB All-Star. While primarily a shortstop early in his career, Desmond began playing primarily left field, center field, and first base starting in 2016.

Minor leagues[edit]

The Montreal Expos selected Desmond in the third round of the 2004 MLB draft (84th overall). Desmond batted .227 with one home run and 27 RBIs for the Gulf Coast League Expos in 2004. He was second in the Gulf Coast League with 216 at-bats and fifth in stolen bases with 13. He had a .250 batting average with one home run and one RBI in four games for the Class-A short-season Vermont Expos.

In 2005, Desmond batted .247 with four home runs and 23 RBIs in 73 games for Class-A Savannah Sand Gnats. He added a career-high 20 stolen bases. Desmond had a .256 batting average with three home runs and 15 RBIs in 55 games for the Class-A Advanced Potomac Nationals of the Carolina League. At season's end, he was named the best defensive shortstop in the South Atlantic League (SAL) in Baseball America's top tools survey of league managers. He was ranked as the 19th best prospect in the SAL by Baseball America.

In 2006, Desmond batted .244 with a career-high nine home runs and 45 RBIs for Potomac. He scored 50 runs and had 20 doubles in 92 games. He had a .182 batting average with no home runs and three RBIs for the Double-A Harrisburg Senators.

Desmond spent the 2007 season with Potomac and set career highs in home runs with 14, average with a .264 clip, on-base percentage with a .357 clip and doubles with 30. Desmond slugged his first homer of the season on April 17. He went 3-for-5 with a home run, double, three RBIs and scored twice on April 20. He homered in consecutive games on July 28–29 and August 12–13.

In 2008, Desmond played for Harrisburg and started the year there in 2009. In his three months there, he batted .306 and, in June, was promoted to the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs. In 55 games with the Chiefs, he batted .354.^[1] After the minor league season ended, he was called up to the Nationals.

Personal life

Desmond has a younger brother, Chris Charron.^[8] Desmond and fellow major league player Josh Roenicke are brothers-in-law; Roenicke, a pitcher who played for the Minnesota Twins through 2013 and signed a minor league deal with the Nationals for 2014,^[30] married Desmond's sister Nikki in 2010.^[31] In January 2010, Ian married his wife Chelsey,^[32] whom he met in the fifth grade.^[33] The couple has four children together. When his first child was born, Desmond became one of the first players to claim paternity leave, which had just been introduced to MLB.^[34]^[35] The family lives in Sarasota, Florida.^[33]

While with the Nationals, Desmond served on the board of the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy, which opened in 2014.^[36]^[37]

Desmond is a national spokesperson for the Children's Tumor Foundation.^[38]

Desmond is related to Viola Desmond, a Canadian civil rights activist.