Yuli Gurriel

Yulieski Gourriel Castillo (born June 9, 1984), commonly known as Yuli Gurriel and nicknamed "La Piña", is a Cuban professional baseball first baseman who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Astros, Miami Marlins, Kansas City Royals, and San Diego Padres, and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Gurriel is a former member of Cuba's national team, and an Olympic Games gold medalist in 2004.

The son of former Cuban player Lourdes Gourriel, Yulieski was regarded as the best player in Cuba in 2006. At the World Baseball Classic in 2006, MLB scouts projected that Gurriel would be a first-round draft pick were he eligible for the draft. He defected from Cuba in 2016, and made his major league debut that year.

In his first full MLB season, 33–year old Gurriel helped lead the Astros to the 2017 World Series championship over the Los Angeles Dodgers, making him the fifth player to have won both an Olympic Games gold medal and a World Series title. He also helped lead the club to American League (AL) pennants over the New York Yankees in 2019 and 2022, as well as the Boston Red Sox in 2021. Gurriel won a second World Series title with the Astros over the Philadelphia Phillies in 2022.

In 2021, Gurriel won the AL batting title, becoming the second Cuban-born player to achieve this. At age 37, Gurriel tied Tony Gwynn (.372 in 1997), Barry Bonds (.370 in 2002), and George Brett (.329 in 1990) as the second oldest player in the divisional era (since 1969) to win a batting title; the only player who was older was Bonds, who also led the NL at age 39 in 2004 with a .362 batting average. Gurriel was also the AL Gold Glove Award winner at first base in 2021, becoming the oldest player to win a Gold Glove at that position until Carlos Santana won the award at age 38 in 2024.