Mark Canha’s recent appearance on the reality show “100 Cooks,” a bakeoff show on the Food Network, wasn’t the official end of his baseball career. He was, after all, identified by the show as a “professional baseball player.”
Eleven months after his last game with the Kansas City Royals, however, Canha admits he’s close to calling it a career.
“Canha was released by the Rangers at the conclusion of spring training, but he isn’t quite ready to give up on his pro baseball career,” Jaylon Thompson reported July 15 in the Kansas City Star. “He is trending toward retirement but will listen if a team calls.”
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Canha, 37, appeared in 11 MLB seasons with the Oakland A’s (2015-21), New York Mets (2022-23), Milwaukee Brewers (2023), Detroit Tigers (2024), San Francisco Giants (2024) and Kansas City Royals (2025).
Last year, he was released at midseason after accruing a .212/.272/.265 slash line and -1.0 bWAR in 46 games with Kansas City.
Overall, Canha slashed .248/.346/.409 (111 OPS+) with 121 home runs, 465 RBIs and 50 stolen bases in 1,095 MLB games.
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Canha’s culinary career isn’t exactly taking off. He was eliminated by hosts Terry Crews and and judges Alex Guarnaschelli and Nick DiGiovanni after one round.
“It was something that seemed, to me, like a simple idea,” Canha told Thompson. “But not being an experienced baker, I think in retrospect, with my lack of experience, I didn’t even know that like that was probably a little too ambitious of a thing to take on, given the time.”
Canha said the episode, which aired June 21, was filmed in January in Burbank, California.
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Retired or not, it’s understandable why the network chose Canha for the episode. He runs an Instagram account, @bigleaguefoodie, that is essentially an endless stream of food porn from kitchens around the world. The account has more than 75,000 followers.
Not many have made the seamless transition from baseball player to food influencer. Canha has a chance to be good at both.
