Yu Darvish Appears to Announce Retirement Before Reneging

Padres pitcher Yu Darvish may have thrown his last pitch in the major leagues—though he has yet to make up his mind for good.

Darvish is considering retiring from baseball, he told Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune Saturday afternoon.

But shortly after Acee’s report made news, Darvish’s agent Joel Wolfe told Bob Nightengale of USA Today that no official decision had been made yet. Darvish himself seconded Wolfe’s comment, writing on social media that although he was “leaning towards” voiding what’s left of his current contract with the Padres, “there’s still a lot that has to be talked over” with the team.

Darvish has three years and $43 million remaining on his current deal.

While Darvish’s potential retirement now feels suddenly murky, if finalized, the decision would bring to an end one of the great careers by a Japanese baseball player in North America.

The 39-year-old joined the Rangers—then the American League’s back-to-back champions—in 2012, after making five All-Star teams in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He immediately announced himself as a force to be reckoned with a 16-win rookie season, and topped that with an otherworldly 2013 that saw him finish second in the Cy Young voting. In his first start of that season, on April 2 at the Astros, he finished one out shy of a perfect game.

In 2017, Texas traded Darvish to the Dodgers; he pitched well in the regular and postseason before enduring a miserable World Series against the Jeff Luhnow-era Astros. Signing with the Cubs, he returned to his early 2010s form in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season—leading MLB in wins with eight and finishing second in the National League Cy Young voting.

Darvish has spent the last five seasons with the Padres, making an All-Star game in 2021 and winning 16 games in ’22. He also has two World Baseball Classic titles under his belt in ’09 and ‘23.

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