The Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization announced yesterday that they’ve re-signed former big leaguers José Pirela and David Buchanan. Pirela will be guaranteed $800K, with an additional $400K in available incentives; Buchanan is guaranteed $1.2MM, with $500K possible in incentives (via Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net).
Pirela, 32, suited up in the majors each season from 2014-19. The right-handed hitter spent his first two seasons with the Yankees, then logged three-plus years with the Padres and had a brief stop with the Phillies. He posted a .257/.308/.392 line in just more than 300 MLB games before making the jump to Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball over the 2019-20 offseason.
After a year with the Hiroshima Carp, Pirela moved to South Korea last winter. He hooked on with the Lions and hit a strong .284/.357/.490 with 28 home runs over 616 plate appearances. That showing impressed the Daegu-based club enough they’ll bring him back for a second season.
Buchanan spent two seasons in the big leagues, serving as a member of the Phillies’ rotation from 2014-15. The righty tossed 192 1/3 innings of 5.01 ERA ball in Philadelphia before heading to Japan in advance of the 2017 campaign. After three seasons with the Yakult Swallows, the Georgia native signed with the Lions for 2020.
He’s spent the past two seasons in the Samsung rotation, tossing 348 innings in Korea’s top league. Buchanan has an impressive 3.21 ERA in that time, striking out 19.1% of opponents while walking only 7.2% of batters faced.
Buchanan was more impressive this last year compared to 2020. I’m impressed that Pirela did so well after doing poorly in the NPB in 2020.
NPB is a pitcher’s league. KBO is a hitter’s league.
Japan’s league pitching is close to MLB level and Korean league pitching is like double A level
Do you guys think this lockout will continue for an extended period of time? Im getting bored with the korean and japanese league news here.
I might be one of the more optimistic ones here, but I think it’ll get resolved much sooner than many thing. For pretty much all owners, the big thing is money. They forwent all revenue in 2020 and had decreased revenue to start 2021. No way do they go through another season with decreased revenue. They’ll be more flexible, and I also think the players may be more flexible for similar reasons. Don’t want to forgo a pro-rated year again.
Stupentious – as opposed to all the Blue Jays interest articles that we’d get otherwise? Not a knock on the site, moreso on the blue jays
I’m wondering if they’ll ever come back and play. The players hate spring training so much they may be willing to never play the regular season again just to avoid spring training
Only the veterans hate ST.
Never forget how much money Florida and Arizona make from spring training.
Local tourism officials, afraid of losing bookings, will start to lean on MLB to settle this by early February, so things remain business as usual.
When the Lions signed Buchanan, I thought they was gone be dope, but they’ve pretty much been horse s