The Kiwoom Heroes of the KBO League have signed outfielder Stone Garrett. Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News writes that Garrett will make roughly $35K on a short-term contract, as Garrett is joining the Heroes as an injury replacement for fellow outfielder Ruben Cardenas. A right flexor injury will sideline Cardenas for roughly the next six weeks, which provides some idea as to the eventual length of Garrett’s stay with the South Korean team.
This isn’t Garrett’s first trip overseas, as he played 39 games with the Sydney Blue Sox during the 2016-17 Australian Baseball League season. It was an excursion during Garrett’s time in the Marlins’ farm system, though it wasn’t until he joined the Diamondbacks as a minor league free agent in 2021 did Garrett get onto a path to the majors. He made his MLB debut with Arizona in 2022, then received semi-regular action with the Nationals in 2023 before appearing in just two big league games with the Nats last season.
Garrett has hit .276/.341/.492 over 361 plate appearances in the Show, though a whopping .369 BABIP and a 30.2% strikeout rate undermine what is a very impressive set of bottom-line numbers. Most (271) of Garrett’s 361 career playing time came with Washington in 2023, but that season ended in late August after Garrett broke his left ankle and fractured his left fibula after crashing into the outfield wall in pursuit of a home run.
Understandably, Garrett hasn’t looked quite in the same in the aftermath of such a major injury. He hit .249/.348/.333 over 302 combined PA with the Nationals’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates in 2024, and he was hitting only .087/.176/.130 in his first 51 trips to the plate with Triple-A Rochester this season when the Nats released Garrett in late April. According to Yoo, Garrett was on the verge of signing with a Mexican League team before joining the Heroes.
Though Garrett might only be a fill-in for Cardenas, a quality stint in the KBO League could get Garrett’s career back on track, and perhaps line him up for another contract in either a foreign league or with an MLB organization. Garrett is still just 29 years old and he has two years of minor league options remaining, so that status might draw some particular interest from big league clubs looking for roster flexibility.
35k for 6 weeks is wild lol
I’ll take it. I didn’t make that a whole year in the minors.
Equivalent of 300k a year, lot of people would take that.
6 grand a week playing in front of 40 thousand screaming dancing fans every night I’ll take it. Better than taking horrible bus trips on the road and playing in front of 1000 people a night in the minors