Former Orioles righty Tyler Wilson has signed a one-year deal with the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced (via Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency). The Meister Sports Management client will take home $800K on a one-year deal, per Yoo.
The 28-year-old Wilson has spent parts of the past three seasons with the Orioles, totaling 145 1/3 innings but struggling to a 5.02 ERA with 4.8 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and an average fastball velocity of 89.9 mph in that time. Wilson showed promising ground-ball tendencies early in his MLB career and was adept at avoiding homers as well, but both of those trends rapidly went in the wrong direction with more exposure to big league hitters.
Those struggles led to a September DFA for Wilson in Baltimore, after which he was outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk. He elected to become a free agent at season’s end following his removal from the 40-man roster.
Wilson does carry a considerably more successful track record in Triple-A, where he’s logged a 3.99 ERA with 6.5 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9 across 302 innings in parts of four seasons. He’ll now earn considerably move overseas than he’d have taken home had he remained in North America on a minor league deal.
Are the LG Twins owned by the same LG that makes my TV?
Yes. Lucky Gold-Star / Zenith
Teams in Korea have companies as owners…Samsung, LG, Kia…which are the easiest for us Americans to identify with.
He should dominate there.
Joining former teammate Hyun Soo Kim! He should put up some good numbers and return to MLB next year.
Very surprised no teams wanted to offer him a contract
They probably did want to offer him a minor league deal, but that would only pay him 25 to 30 percent of the $800K he’s going to be guaranteed in South Korea.
He has a below average fastball and a very good curve. Curveball is really his only plus pitch. He’s the kind of guy you keep down in the minors in case of an emergency. He’ll never make 800k here.
more guys signing outside of MLB than with-in. Wonder what Hosmer or JD would get over there
Considering Dae-ho Lee’s four-year, $12.9MM contract is the largest in KBO history, I think JDM and Hoz are better off here. :)
(Yes, I know you were kidding, ha)
Steve, not that a Japanese team would break the bank for JDM or Hosmer, but what was the largest contract offered to anAmerican there?
At the time in 1988 Bill Gullickson took a roughly major league deal to go to Japan. I think it was when the players were worried about being locked out.
I’m not sure off the top of my head. I know Randy Messenger’s last deal with the Hanshin Tigers was three years with the possibility to max out around $15-16MM, and that was one of the larger deals ever at the time (2013). Would be fun to look into that kind of thing and get the actual records. I’ll make a note to check it out in Spring Training once the bulk of the KBO/NPB teams have wrapped up their offseason shopping, and see about doing a quick post on MLBTR on the subject.
This is one of the best moves of the year. Intelligence, insight and intriguing. He can bat lead off or cleanup
Tyler Wilson is an outstanding young man. I can truly say he’s one of the nicest guys I have ever met. I wish the best