June 10: The Hanwha Eagles announced agreement with Pena on a deal that will pay him $500K for the remainder of the season (h/t to Jee-ho Yoo of Yonhap). He’ll take the roster spot of former Pirates and Blue Jays righty Nick Kingham, who was released last week due to an elbow injury.
June 8: Right-hander Felix Pena is exercising an opt-out in his minor league deal with the Mets in order to sign with a team in the Korea Baseball Organization, reports Anthony DiComo of MLB.com (Twitter link). It’s not clear yet which club Pena will sign with.
Pena, 32, signed with the Mets over the winter on the heels of an outstanding showing in the Dominican Winter League (1.91 ERA, 27-to-7 K/BB ratio in 33 innings). He’s appeared in eight games with the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate in Syracuse thus far — six starts and a pair of relief appearances — working to a 4.06 ERA with a 20.2% strikeout rate and very strong walk and ground-ball rates (7.0% and 53.3%, respectively).
A solid swingman with the Halos from 2018-20, Pena turned in a combined 215 2/3 innings of 4.34 ERA ball with a 23.6% strikeout rate, a 7.7% walk rate and a 43.4% grounder rate during that three-year run. He’s made 24 starts at the MLB level in addition to another 80 relief outings, though it’s likely he’ll work out of a rotation in the KBO.
Pena suffered an ACL tear with the 2019 Angels, rebounded with a solid 2020 effort and then posted disastrous results both in the Majors and in Triple-A during the 2021 season. A hamstring strain shelved him for the first six weeks last season, and he was clobbered for seven runs in just 1 2/3 frames upon returning. The Halos passed him through waivers and retained his rights, but he surrendered 61 innings in 68 1/3 Triple-A frames over the remainder of the year in Salt Lake.
That ugly sequence took him off the MLB radar, but Pena’s strong showing in winter ball and solid work in Triple-A look to have earned him a six-figure salary overseas. If he shows well enough in the KBO, he could potentially put himself back on the MLB map, as we’ve seen with increasing frequency in recent years.
Hanwha Eagles is my guess…they also recently cut a pitcher
61 earned runs in 68 innings in AAA in 2021. Good luck in Korea.
He was likely not 100% healthy after returning from his injury and when he’s healthy he’s a solid back end of the rotation piece.
Never overlook a solid back end.
@Cohn Joppolella. Agreed. And along those lines, it’s probably going to be very difficult for him to leave his teammates and good friends behinds.
When he gets to Korea he’ll be promoted to Rear Admiral
He’ll be fine Korea is A ball level at best
KBO is actually above AA and is getting close to AAA. Your average regular is probably AAA quality 8n part because the depth in the KBO is considerably worse than AAA.
Idk the defense and most pitchers are awful. It’s probably somewhere between A and AA. It’s only been a league since the 1980s so it’s not that bad to be at that level for a short amount of time.
It’s superstar level bat-flipping though
Wash says…It’s incredibly hard
I wish him luck. It sucks being in AAA after having been up in The Show, and Syracuse provided their starters no offense, so the pressure to be perfect was always on him.
This should have been proofread. “He surrendered 61 innings in 68.33 frames.”
61 innings in 68 frames? What did he do the other 7 innings he was supposed to be pitching?
Meh, more money towards proven effective bullpen help next month.
Steve, would be nice for some update on the Mets!! Magill came back, DeGrom is progressing and Alonso avoided the IL. Need to up your game dude!!