{"id":427855,"date":"2026-01-24T22:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/427855\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T22:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:32:07","slug":"yu-darvish-contemplating-retirement-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/427855\/","title":{"rendered":"Yu Darvish Contemplating Retirement &#8211; MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Longtime major-leaguer and current Padres starter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/darviyu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Yu Darvish<\/a> is contemplating retirement. A report from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/2026\/01\/24\/padres-pitcher-yu-darvish-set-to-retire\/?clearUserState=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Kevin Acee<\/a> of the San Diego Union-Tribune indicated that Darvish was retiring. Darvish\u2019s agent, Joel Wolfe, refuted that report. \u201cYu has not made a final decision yet. This is a complicated matter we are still working through,\u201d said Wolfe (<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Alden_Gonzalez\/status\/2015173052649394570?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">link<\/a> via Alden Gonzalez of ESPN).<\/p>\n<p>Darvish addressed the situation through a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/faridyu\/status\/2015178902596206685?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">statement<\/a> on his X account. \u201cAlthough I am leaning towards voiding the contract,\u201d he said, \u201cthere\u2019s still a lot that has to be talked over with the Padres so the finer details are yet to be decided. Also I will not be announcing my retirement yet. Right now I am fully focused on my rehab for my elbow, and if I get to a point where I can throw again, I will start from scratch again to compete. If once I get to that point I feel I can\u2019t do that, I will announce my retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 39-year-old right-hander is owed $43MM over 2026-28 from the extension he and the Padres signed in April 2023. If he retires without reaching a settlement, he would forfeit that money. As Darvish indicated, he and the Padres may be working on a buyout that would see him keep some portion of his salary while giving the team significant cost savings over the next three years.<\/p>\n<p>If he does decide to retire, he\u2019ll be wrapping up an incredible 21-year career across Japan\u2019s Nippon Professional Baseball and MLB. In 2005, Darvish made his debut at age 18 for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He pitched 94 1\/3 innings over 14 starts as a rookie that year, following it up with a 2.89 ERA in 149 2\/3 innings in 2006. From 2007-11, he was absolutely dominant, totaling 1,024 1\/3 innings with a 1.72 ERA, 1,083 strikeouts, and a cumulative record of 76-28. Darvish was an NPB All-Star in every season in that span, twice being named the Pacific League MVP (2007 and 2009) and winning the Sawamura Award (NPB\u2019s equivalent of the Cy Young) in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime major-leaguer and current Padres starter Yu Darvish is contemplating retirement. A report from\u00a0Kevin Acee of the San&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,47127],"class_list":{"0":"post-427855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-yu-darvish"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}