Yasiel Puig, the Cuban-born outfielder who was, for a few seasons, a sensation in Major League Baseball, will return to Venezuela to play winter ball for the Navegantes de Magallanes.
Yusseff Diaz of PelotaCubanaUSA first reported the news on his X account Friday evening.
Fuentes: Yasiel Puig firma con los Navegantes de Magallanes para la venidera temporada invernal. El jardinero cubano jugó con los Heroes de Kiwoom este verano.#pelotacubana #LVBP pic.twitter.com/5nUt5wFf2n
— Yusseff305 🇨🇺🇺🇲 (@yusseff305) August 30, 2025
Puig, 34, played in South Korea’s KBO League with the Kiwoom Heroes this summer, but his season was shortened when he suffered a rotator cuff injury sliding into first base on a pickoff play in late April. The Heroes released him the following month, with Puig having batted .212/.285/.340 with six homers and 20 RBIs in 40 games, and he returned to the United States to rehabilitate from his injury.
The upcoming 2025-26 campaign will be the Cuban expatriate’s third season in the Liga Venezolana de Beisbol Profesional. After starting the 2023-24 winter season in the Dominican Republic’s LIDOM with the Estrellas Orientales, Puig joined the Tiburones de La Guaira and was sensational over 26 games, batting .418/.518/.846 with a 1.364 OPS, 10 homers and 23 RBIs in just 91 at-bats. He appeared in seven games at the 2024 Caribbean Series in Miami, hitting a homer and driving in two runs as La Guaira claimed its first Caribbean Series title since 1986.
He returned to the Tiburones for 2024-25, appearing in 17 games and batting .242 across 62 at-bats before leaving the team to prepare for the summer season with the Heroes.
While the LVBP’s regular season begins in early October, Puig will likely have to return to the United States in November, when he is scheduled to be tried in federal court in Los Angeles, where he is charged with two counts of making false statements to federal investigators and one count of obstruction of justice in the Central District of California.
The charges against Puig, which stem from an investigation into a California-based illegal sports gambling ring run by former minor leaguer Wayne Nix, have been pending since 2022, when he reneged on an agreement to plead guilty to a single count of making false statements to federal investigators, but has been held up for by an appeal regarding the admissibility of the facts of the plea agreement Puig had reached with the government. Puig’s trial will began at 8:30 a.m. PST on November 4 at the United States Courthouse in Los Angeles before Judge Gee. Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Puig is obligated to appear at the trial.
Puig last appeared in Major League Baseball in 2019, playing 149 games with Cleveland and Cincinnati and batting .267 with 24 homers and 84 RBIs.
Photo: Yasiel Puig of Kiwoom Heroes hits a ball during the opening game of the 2022 regular season for the Korea Baseball Organization in Seoul, April 2, 2022. Authorities Puig will plead guilty to lying to federal agents investigating an illegal sports gambling operation. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, that Puig acknowledged in unsealed court documents that he denied betting on the operation when in fact he made hundreds of bets in 2019. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)
