Dayán Viciedo, first Cuban to receive the Gold Glove in Japanese baseball

December 20, 2020

The Villa Clara native Dayán Viciedo broke the perfect dominance of Japanese players in the race for the Gold Gloves of that country's professional circuit, as he was the only foreigner who managed to win the award as best defender.

The first baseman of the Chunichi Dragons finished the season with a fielding average of .999, committed only one error in 937 chances, and led all first basemen in the Central League in games played (109), assists (67) and double plays (89).

Those credentials were enough for voters to award him 194 first-place ballots, well above his rivals Munetaka Murakami (35) and Venezuelan José Celestino López (34), according to a report from the Japanese Baseball portal.

Viciedo, in addition to being the only foreigner with a Gold Glove in the 2020 season, thus became the first Cuban to win this award in the Asian circuit.

For their part, only eight Latin American players have won Gold Gloves in Japanese baseball, and half of them are Venezuelan. José Celestino López has the most prominence, awarded five times, followed by Robert Marcano (four) and Roberto Pegatine (three). The other dark-skinned player who won the award was Alex Cabrera.

In addition to Viciedo, the other Latin Americans who have won the award as best defenders of the Asian circuit are Mexican Luis Cruz, Dominican Julio Franco and Puerto Rican Dicky González.

The Caribbean player thus crowns another relevant campaign on the individual front, as he led his team in home runs (17), RBIs (82), total bases (186) and extra-base hits (40), with an offensive line of .267/.329/.447. However, from a collective standpoint, the Dragons finished third in the Central League and failed to advance to the postseason.

Dayán Viciedo, who left Cuba in 2008 and played in MLB with the Chicago White Sox from 2010 to 2014, has already accumulated five seasons in Japan, always defending the Chunichi uniform. In that span, he has accumulated 101 home runs and 391 RBIs, with 301 runs scored, 652 hits and 125 doubles.

Overall, he has batted .296/.364/.492, with very good performance in 2018 and 2019, years in which he drove in more than 90 runs and hit more than 90 extra-base hits.