{"id":707147,"date":"2026-05-24T03:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/707147\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T03:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:27:13","slug":"dayan-viciedo-retires-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/707147\/","title":{"rendered":"Day\u00e1n Viciedo Retires – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former White Sox outfielder Day\u00e1n Viciedo<\/a> is retiring, according to a post from Yakyu Cosmopolitan<\/a>. Viciedo is currently with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Japan\u2019s Nippon Professional Baseball. He will retire after today\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

Viciedo defected from Cuba in March 2008 and was declared a free agent by MLB in November of that year. He signed a four-year, $10MM contract with the White Sox that December. Viciedo spent 2009 at Double-A before progressing to Triple-A and finding himself on the cusp of the Majors. He debuted for the White Sox in June 2010 at the age of 21.<\/p>\n

Viciedo only had 106 plate appearances across 38 games that year, but he impressed with a .309 batting average and a 122 wRC+. He regressed in sparse playing time in 2011, posting a 78 wRC+ in 29 games. Viciedo finally earned a starting role in 2012 and posted his best season as a big leaguer. In 543 plate appearances, Viciedo batted .255\/.300\/.444 with 25 home runs and a 98 wRC+ as the White Sox\u2019 primary left fielder. He also contributed on defense with two Defensive Runs Saved en route to an 0.8 fWAR season.<\/p>\n

Viciedo followed that up with a near-identical .265\/.304\/.426 output in 473 plate appearances in 2013, missing three weeks with a strained left oblique. That was good for another 98 wRC+, although Viciedo\u2019s defense declined slightly (-2 DRS) and tampered his overall value. The 2014 season was a bigger drop-off. Viciedo hit 21 home runs, but his overall line of .231\/.281\/.405 was good for just a 90 wRC+. In addition, his once serviceable defense had become a liability, with FanGraphs having Viciedo at -15 DRS between the outfield corners.<\/p>\n

Chicago avoided arbitration with Viciedo on a $4.4MM deal in January 2015 but designated him for assignment that same month. He split that year with the Blue Jays, Athletics, and White Sox on minor league pacts, posting a 124 wRC+ at Triple-A. However, he did not make it back to the Majors.<\/p>\n

That left Viciedo with a career output of .254\/.298\/.424 and 66 home runs in 483 MLB games. However, his playing career was far from over. Viciedo made the jump to Nippon Professional Baseball by signing a one-year pact with the Chunichi Dragons for the 2016 season. He immediately found success, putting up a .274\/.352\/.486 line with 22 home runs in 119 games and earning an NPB All-Star nomination. Viciedo followed that up with 18 home runs in 87 games for the Dragons in 2017.<\/p>\n

The 2018-19 seasons were the peak of what will end up being an 11-year career in NPB. Viciedo batted .348\/.419\/.555 with a 165 wRC+ in 2018. His output that year also included 26 home runs and 99 runs batted in, both of which were career highs. Viciedo was recognized as one of the Central League\u2019s Best 9 for his performance that year, earning himself a three-year extension in the process. In 2019, Viciedo had another excellent season, posting a 140 wRC+ and hitting 18 home runs in 143 games.<\/p>\n

He wouldn\u2019t quite reach those heights again, but Viciedo remained productive as he played into his 30s. He put up an OPS between .766 and .792 in every season from 2020-22, hitting a total of 48 home runs with 215 RBI in that span. The 2022 season was Viciedo\u2019s last as a productive regular, as he batted 294\/.355\/.437 with a 136 wRC+ for the Dragons.<\/p>\n

From 2023 to the present, Viciedo settled in as a part-time player. He remained with the Dragons from 2023-24 and earned his 1,000th career NPB hit in September 2023. Viciedo was the first foreign-born player in Dragons history to achieve that feat. After only playing 15 games in 2024, Viciedo joined the BayStars in 2025 and put up a 110 wRC+ in 43 games that year. He\u2019s batted .269\/.310\/.385 thus far in 2026, which will end up as the final season of his career.<\/p>\n

Overall, Viciedo ends his NPB career batting .286\/.352\/.457 with 1,040 hits and 142 home runs in 4,046 plate appearances. His career earnings in MLB totaled $13.3MM, followed by over $11.3MM in Japan. We at MLBTR congratulate Viciedo on a fine playing career and wish him the best in retirement.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Jerry Lai, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former White Sox outfielder Day\u00e1n Viciedo is retiring, according to a post from Yakyu Cosmopolitan. Viciedo is currently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,62427,2597],"class_list":["post-707147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-dayan-viciedo","tag-retirement"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116627429385382002","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}