KBO Reliever Woo Suk Go Requests To Be Posted For MLB Teams

TODAY: Go and his representatives have asked the Twins to post him for MLB teams this winter, according to reporter Daniel Kim and MyKBO.net’s Dan Kurtz.  (Both links via X.)  It isn’t yet known if the Twins will agree to Go’s request.

NOVEMBER 15: Major League Baseball has tendered a status check with the Korea Baseball Organization on LG Twins closer Woo Suk Go, reports Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. The status check is a formal procedure when big league clubs are showing interest in a player with the potential to be posted. Yoo writes that MLB has also tendered a status check on Kiwoom Heroes outfielder Jung Hoo Lee, for instance, although it’s been known for months now that Lee would be posted for MLB clubs, making the status check even more of a formality. Go, however, has not been the subject of potential posting rumors until now.

Go, 25, closed out the Twins’ victory in this year’s Korean Series — the team’s first KBO title in nearly three decades. He’s been the primary closer for the Twins for the past five seasons, pitching to a collective 2.39 ERA with 139 saves, a 30.2% strikeout rate, a 10% walk rate and a ground-ball rate north of 60% in that time. Go missed time this past season with a lower back injury but still pitched 44 innings of 3.68 ERA ball with a 31.1% strikeout rate, 11.6% walk rate and massive 65.8% grounder rate.

To be clear, tendering a status check is not a definitive declaration that the player will be making the jump to Major League Baseball. The Twins have yet to publicly indicate that they’ll post Go for big league clubs, apparent interest in him notwithstanding. Even if he is posted, there’s no guarantee he’ll ultimately sign in the Majors. For instance, star KBO outfielder Sung Bum Na was posted by the NC Dinos two seasons ago but ultimately returned to his former club after failing to reach an agreement. He played another season with the Dinos before becoming a free agent and signing a four-year, $12.6MM contract to remain in the KBO with a new team, the Kia Tigers.

That said, Go is still an interesting name to keep on the radar for MLB fans. Like Lee and Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, he’s quite a bit younger than the majority of professional players from Asia who become available to big league clubs, having only turned 25 in early August. The 5’11”, 198-pound Go has a heater that sits mid-90s and was regularly in the 94-96 mph range during his recent Korean Series appearance. Prior to the season, Sports Info Solution’s Ted Baarda noted in his WBC preview that Go’s fastball has topped out at 98 mph. Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net offered up some video of Go recording a save in Game 3 of the Korean Series earlier this month.

Because he has fewer than nine seasons of KBO service time, Go would need to enter Major League Baseball through the posting system. Upon being posted by the Twins, he’d have 30 days to agree to a contract with an MLB team. The team that signs Go would owe a posting/release fee to his former KBO club. That would be equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any subsequent dollars committed to Go. (That’s on top of the money paid to Go himself — not subtracted from his guarantee.)

Interestingly, Go and Lee are brothers-in-law, though that holds little bearing beyond its sheer anecdotal nature. Perhaps the pair would prefer to land on the same team or at least in close proximity to one another if indeed both land in North American ball, though that’s purely speculative. And as always, the driving force behind the vast majority of free-agent signings is simply the strength of the offer in both years and dollars.

Despite his youth, Go has seven seasons of service time in the KBO, Yoo notes in his piece for Yonhap. Even if he doesn’t end up joining a big league team this offseason then, he’ll be on track to accrue the requisite nine years of KBO service time needed to qualify for unrestricted international free agency. That would allow him to field offers from MLB clubs in the 2025-26 offseason and make the jump to MLB without being subject to the posting system.