Right-hander Casey Kelly has re-signed with the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization, tweets Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap. He’ll make $1.5MM for the 2024 season.
Kelly heads back to the Seoul-based franchise for a sixth season. MLB.com’s Jon Morosi suggested earlier this month that the 34-year-old could be on MLB radars. While it’s possible he found some amount of big league interest, he’s clearly comfortable with the KBO’s defending champions.
A former first-round pick of the Red Sox, Kelly struggled to a 5.46 ERA with three clubs over parts of four MLB seasons between 2012-18. He has been a durable and effective starter since making the jump to Korea for the 2019 campaign. He has started between 27 and 30 games in each of his five KBO seasons, topping 166 innings annually. This past season’s 3.83 ERA was the highest of any those years.
The Twins also re-signed outfielder Austin Dean last week. That duo is joined by newcomer Dietrich Enns as the team’s three foreign-born players. Righty Adam Plutko did not re-sign and is seeking MLB opportunities this winter.
Getting essentially nothing for Adrian Gonzalez is still painful.
They did get a couple pretty good seasons from Andrew Cashner out of it, but obviously they should have held onto Rizzo instead in hindsight.
Happy to see Kelly succeeding at what he loves, while making some good money in the process.
This is just another example of the disparity in quality between MLB and foreign leagues.
This helps lessens the impact of Woo-Suk Go going to another club with different guys.
Spent a year in Korea while in service. Many years ago. Wonderful place, wonderful people. I can see why he would be happy to stay there. Plus making good money.
You’re correct about Korea, but your last line is why he’s staying.
This reminded me how 2016 was such a crazy year for Braves pitching.. They pulled guys from everywhere!
Check out the list of names on this one..lol I bet there will be a name or two, where you’re like homy crap where did that guy end up, or he was a Brave!?!
Dario Alvarez
Aaron Blair
Jed Bradley
Mauricio Cabrera
Hunter Cervenka
Jhoulys Chacín
Josh Collmenter
Brandon Cunniff
Joel De La Cruz
Mike Foltynewicz
John Gant
Jason Grilli
Lucas Harrell
Roberto Hernandez
Jason Hursh
Tyrell Jenkins
Jim Johnson
Casey Kelly
Ian Krol
Matt Marksberry
Bud Norris
Eric O’Flaherty
Alexi Ogando
Williams Perez
Jose Ramirez
Chaz Roe
Shae Simmons
Julio Teheran
Arodys Vizcaino
Ryan Weber
Rob Whalen
Dan Winkler
Matt Wisler
Chris Withrow
Madison Younginer
Goes to show the extremes in leagues. Kelly has excelled in Korea over the last 4 or 5 seasons and couldn’t put it together in the states. At least he’s continuing to play the sport he loves while making great money.
This is also concerning when it comes to Korean players being posted and MLB teams taking a chance. Totally different level of talent, if it’s hard to hit off of Kelly then it’s going to be near impossible to hit in the MLB. As for pitching, if you’re buckling guys knees in Korea, you better be pitching at at 1.00 ERA or less to have a chance in MLB.
He made the right choice