NOV. 13: Yang will be posted next Monday, the 17th, reports Feinsand in an updated piece. Feinsand notes that the Yankees might show interest in the lefty, and he lists the Cubs, Astros, Giants and Red Sox as other clubs with potential interest.
NOV. 4: Another high profile Korean pitcher and his KBO team have decided to take a run through the posting system. As Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News reports, lefty Hyeon-jong Yang will be posted by the Kia Tigers in the next few weeks.
Yang joins countryman (and fellow 26-year-old southpaw) Kwang-Hyun Kim in preparing for the posting process. Kim outperformed Yang last year, registering a 3.42 ERA to the 4.25 mark notched by Yang in a notoriously hitter-friendly environment.
Feinsand’s sources tell him that Yang has a low-to-mid 90’s fastball and useful slider (as well as a curve and change) that could hold appeal. According to the Yonhap News Agency, which recently reported that Yang was interested in coming to North America, Yang’s 2014 season was fairly characteristic of his results. Over his career, per Yonhap, he has struck out 740 over 860 1/3 frames.
How much of a hitter friendly environment is it because that era is not that great. Any chance Cubs would want him?
Only 6 guys had an ERA under 4 this year.
I really doubt he’d be a no3 starter as stated in the link, though.
both are back end to long relief in the majors.
Very hitter friendly. About like Albuquerque or some of the other PCL parks back in the 1980s, where hitting .300 could get you benched.
A 4.25 ERA in that league probably translated to an ERA+ of about 120-130. When it comes to the KBO, the stats are so distorted and inflated that you have to rely on scouting reports. It’s nowhere near the “Quad-A” level of play in Japan.
Oh be nice. More like 60 to 65.
ERA+ of 120-130 relative to the KBO, not to Major League Baseball, if I wasn’t clear on that. There’s no way to know what his abilities would translate to here, because the playing conditions are so completely different. Scouts can make educated guesses, but that’s it.
There’s no way I’d predict any KBO pitcher to post an ERA 20 percent above MLB average coming directly to the majors. That would be nuts.
let’s just get this out of the way: are there any players not linked to the cubs?
Lots of money available. A number of holes to fill. Aggressive front office.
I’d say “no”. There aren’t any players that wouldn’t be linked to the Cubs. Except Chris Young. Because he already agreed with the Yanks…
Probably a very serviceable lefty out of the pen, or a back-end of the rotation starter.
Yankees will sign the yang and Moncadi and resign Headley and Robertson and than go to war with a Young staff and better farm!
Phillies should just sign all these high profile international free agents/posts. Why not?
The big reason – they don’t want to go over the luxury tax while having a bad team.
They can’t get any worst.
If they could get someone to take some of their awful contracts off their hands, they might do that.
Not worried about the ERA on both but I wish there was info on the advanced stats….would like to know the BB%, K%, GB%, FB% hr/fb ratio, babip, and his plate discipline numbers…anyone know if that info is available because Fangraphs is only for MLB players not international.
You can see a few of those stats on KBReport, but it’s all in Korean.
22.5 K% (3rd), 10.5 BB%, .321 BABIP. 1.39 WHIP (10th), .710 OPS (5th), 4.19 FIP (4th) and was ranked the 3rd best pitcher (ahead of Kim Kwang-hyun) by WAR, though I don’t know how KBReport calculate their WAR.
He has a page in BRef
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=yang–000hye
I guess knowing he’s theoretically the best pitcher in the KBL and that most likely translates into a number three over here, an AAV of 10 million including the posting fee wouldn’t be a horrible gamble. And if you can get it done for less you may get a really good bargain. Or he could be horrible. How’s it coming with that international draft?
Never going to happen in countries that have established pro leagues. They’d never stand for it. MLB teams are always going to have to pay to acquire players from the NPB, KBO, or even the Mexican League.
Isn’t the KBO particularly hitter friendly in part because the pitchers are mediocre? Hyun jin Ryu, the last good MLB pitcher to come from the KBO, posted a career ERA of 2.80 in over 1,000 IP in the KBO.
Yes. They also use a juiced ball that travels further than an MLB or NPB ball.
Yang has great fastball and average change ups. If major league pitching coaches work on his control and help him make his change up above average, he will be a great no.3 pitcher
Being interested in signing the Korean pitcher, and actually signing a foreign player for the Giants is two totally different things. Sabean has got to be more open to taking a chance on a Cuban or foreign player, and quit sinking dollars on popular, but now lost pitchers like Lincecum. Sure Tim has done a lot for the team previously, but unless you are the Dodgers or Yankees, there just is no payroll room for bad contracts.