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KBO’s Doosan Bears Close To Re-Signing Jose Miguel Fernandez

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The Doosan Bears of the Korea Baseball Organization are close to re-signing Jose Miguel Fernandez, reports Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News. This would be the fourth season with the Bears for Fernandez, who turns 34 in April.

Fernandez was a high-profile signing of the Dodgers in 2017, after defecting from his native Cuba in 2015. In 2017, he played 90 games in Double-A and three in Triple-A, producing an overall slash line of .306/.367/.496. Despite that solid production, the Dodgers released him at the end of the year. He was signed by the Angels and spent most of 2018 in Triple-A, hitting an excellent .333/.396/.535. That was enough to get him selected to the big league club, playing 36 games and hitting .267/.309/.388. That small sample is the only MLB experience on his resume, as he signed with the Bears after that season.

Fernandez has had three straight excellent campaigns for the Bears, with at least 141 games played and 15 home runs in each of them. His overall line from 2019 to 2021 is .334/.403/.476, walking more than he struck out in that time, 184 to 131. Now it appears he will be suiting up for the Bears for a fourth straight season in 2022, his age-34 campaign.

As noted by Yoo, each KBO team except for the Bears has filled their three slots for foreign players. The Bears have used two so far, on Ariel Miranda and Robert Stock. If the signing of Fernandez is completed, that would mean all the league’s roster spots for non-Korean players are spoken for.

KBO’s Kia Tigers Sign Sean Nolin

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The KBO League’s Kia Tigers have signed left-hander Sean Nolin to a one-year contract.  As per Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News, Nolin will earn $600K in guaranteed money ($250K signing bonus, $350K salary) and up to $300K more in incentives.

Nolin had re-signed with the Nationals on a minor league contract back in November, but it appears as though the club released him so Nolin could pursue the opportunity in the Korea Baseball Organization.  This isn’t Nolin’s first time playing abroad, as he previously pitched in Japan with the Seibu Lions in 2020, tossing 21 1/3 innings with the NPB club.

The southpaw followed up that brief NPB stint with a return to North American baseball, via a minor league deal with the Nats that eventually led to a big league call-up.  With 26 2/3 innings of 4.39 ERA ball with Washington, Nolin banked his first Major League action since way back in 2015, when he pitched for the A’s.  Once a notable prospect in the Blue Jays farm system, Nolin pitched 31 1/3 MLB innings from 2013-15 before injuries waylaid his career, including a Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for all of the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

Over 670 1/3 career frames in the minors with six different big league organizations, Nolin has a solid 3.48 ERA and 24.11% strikeout rate.  He has worked as both a starter and a reliever, giving the Lions some flexibility in how they might deploy him on their 2022 roster.

Robert Stock Signs With KBO’s Doosan Bears

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Free-agent Robert Stock will sign with the Doosan Bears of the KBO for $500K in guaranteed money over one year. He can earn an additional $200K in incentives, per Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News (via Twitter).

News first broke of Stock’s potential signing on New Year’s Day. As noted in this initial write-up from MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald, Stock posted solid numbers in Triple-A with the Cubs and Mets last season, though he was slowed by injuries.

In his fourth consecutive season seeing time in the bigs, Stock made three starts in the Majors, one for the Cubs, and a pair with the Mets. In Triple-A, however, he managed to post a very good strikeout rate of 26.2% and an acceptable walk rate of 8.1%, as well as an overall 3.57 ERA over 35 1/3 innings.

Stock has mostly been a reliever throughout his career. His three starts this season were his first in 55 games of big-league experience. Even in the minors, he has just 13 career starts. The 32-year-old seems likeliest to pitch out of the bullpen for the Bears, though he wouldn’t be the first player to re-invent himself upon arrival in the KBO. That said, the Bears reportedly like Stock’s big arm, with a fastball that averaged more than 96 mph and the ability to hit triple digits.

Robert Stock Close To Signing With KBO’s Doosan Bears

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Right-handed pitcher Robert Stock is close to signing with the Doosan Bears of the Korea Baseball Organization, reports Daniel Kim, relaying information from Korean media organizations. He says that there is no official deal just yet but that it “sounds close”.

Stock was selected by St. Louis in the second round of the 2009 draft but didn’t make his MLB debut until 2018, spending time in the organizations of the Cardinals, Pirates and Reds before finally making it to the show with the Padres. In addition to the Padres, Stock has seen some MLB action with the Red Sox, Cubs and Mets over the past four seasons. (He was also claimed by the Phillies after the 2019 season but was designated for assignment before the 2020 season began.) He has 72 2/3 MLB innings under his belt, with an ERA of 4.71, strikeout rate of 23.1% and walk rate of 12.2%.

In 2021, he was only able to throw nine total innings in the big leagues over three starts, putting up an ERA of 8.00. But in 35 1/3 Triple-A innings, he had a 3.57 ERA, along with a very good strikeout rate of 26.2% and walk rate of 8.1%. He was with the Mets when a hamstring strain landed him on the IL in July, an injury that ended his season. He was outrighted off the roster in October and elected free agency.

After years off bouncing from team to team and from the minors to the majors, Stock, 32, now seems to be heading for a job in Korea that will likely provide him more regular playing time and better pay than he would have received with another season as a journeyman in North America. If he is able to thrive in this new opportunity, he could always return to MLB with increased interest from clubs, as many other have done in recent years. As mentioned by Kim, the Bears signed Chris Flexen a couple of years ago, who pitched well enough to garner a two-year contract from the Mariners prior to the 2021 season.

KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes Re-Sign Eric Jokisch

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The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization have re-signed lefty Eric Jokisch, per Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News. The 32-year-old will make $1.3MM.

The southpaw has 14 1/3 innings of MLB experience, which came with the Cubs back in 2014. He had an ERA of 1.88 in that stint, but then bounced around the minors for the next four years without being given another shot at the big league level. He signed with the Heroes prior to the 2019 season and recently completed his third straight excellent campaign.

In 2019, he made 30 starts, throwing 180 1/3 innings with an ERA of 3.13. In 2020, in 159 2/3 innings over 27 starts, his ERA dropped all the way down to 2.14. His 18% strikeout rate was a bit low, but he succeeded largely because of his incredible groundball rate of 71.9%. After that excellent season, it was rumored that he was considering a return to MLB. However, he ended up re-signing with the Heroes.

In 2021, he made 31 more starts, logging 181 1/3 innings with an ERA of 2.93. Once again, his meager strikeout rate of 17.7% was offset by an incredible groundball rate, this time reaching an amazing 75.9%. As noted by Yoo, over the past three years, Jokisch leads the KBO in ERA and is third in both wins and innings. He’ll now look to build on that tremendous three-year run by suiting up for the Heroes for a fourth season.

KBO’s KT Wiz Re-Sign Odrisamer Despaigne, William Cuevas

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The KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization announced they’ve re-signed pitchers Odrisamer Despaigne and William Cuevas. Despaigne signed a one-year deal worth $1.1MM that comes with an additional $250K in possible incentives; Cuevas inked a one-year, $1MM guarantee with $100K available in incentives (h/t to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap). Despaigne is represented by Charisse Dash of QC Sports.

This will be Despaigne’s third season with the Wiz, as he originally joined the franchise in advance of the 2020 campaign. He posted a 4.33 ERA across 207 2/3 innings that season, then re-upped on another deal last winter. The Cuba native pitched 188 2/3 frames in 2021, working to a 3.39 ERA with a 20.1% strikeout percentage and a 9.5% walk rate. That reliable production over a heavy workload impressed the Suwon-based club’s front office enough to bring him back for another year.

Despaigne, who turns 35 in April, is better known in the U.S. for his time in the big leagues, which spanned 2014-19. The bulk of that work came over his first two seasons, as Despaigne started 34 of 50 appearances with the Padres from 2014-15. His rookie campaign featured 96 1/3 frames with a 3.36 ERA and a very strong 52.1% ground-ball rate, but Despaigne couldn’t build off that solid debut showing. After two seasons in San Diego, the right-hander bounced between the Orioles, Marlins, Angels and White Sox. He’s made 109 MLB appearances (including 50 starts) and owns a 5.11 ERA over 363 major league innings.

Cuevas is back for a fourth year with the Wiz. The Venezuela native has been a capable rotation arm, tossing 140+ innings with an ERA around 4.00 in each of his first three years. That includes a 3.91 mark over 140 1/3 frames this past season, a year that saw Cuevas punch out 24% of opponents against an 8.9% walk rate. Before making the jump to South Korea, the 31-year-old spent time with the Red Sox and Tigers. He made 13 MLB appearances between 2016-18, working 22 1/3 innings of 8.06 ERA ball.

Byung-ho Park Signs With KBO’s KT Wiz

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First baseman Byung-ho Park has signed with the KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced. It’s a three-year deal that’ll pay him $2.5MM (h/t to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap).

Park, 35, has spent the bulk of his professional career in South Korea. He broke in as an 18-year-old in 2005 and spent his first few seasons with the LG Twins. By 2011, he’d moved to the Nexen Heroes and quickly emerged as a middle-of-the-order masher. He posted an OPS above 1.000 in each season from 2013-15, blasting 50+ home runs in each of the latter two years of that run.

While that stretch marked the best few years of Park’s career, he’s better known in the United States for his stint with the Minnesota Twins. After the 2015 campaign, the Heroes made the right-handed hitter available to big league clubs via the posting system. At that time, the posting process involved blind bidding for the right to negotiate with the player. (The most recent CBA completely changed the system, and the posting fee is now determined as a percentage of the player’s contract).

The Twins won the bidding by paying a $12.85MM posting fee to the Heroes, giving them a month’s window of exclusive negotiation to hammer out a deal with Park. They eventually agreed upon a four-year, $12MM deal that brought the Twins’ total outlay just under $25MM in hopes of adding an impact bat to the lineup.

Unfortunately for Park and the Twins, that proved not to be the case. He struggled to a .191/.275/.409 line over 244 MLB plate appearances in 2016, punching out at an alarming 32.8% clip. The Twins outrighted him off the 40-man roster that offseason, and he spent the entire 2017 campaign in Triple-A. At the end of that second season, Park requested and was granted his release to return to his home country, with contemporary reports indicating he forewent some or all of his remaining guaranteed money from Minnesota to do so.

Park has spent the past four seasons with the Heroes, mashing over the first two years before enduring an offensive dip in each of the past two campaigns. He’s coming off a .229/.322/.433 showing that’s his least productive in the KBO in over a decade. He’ll now make the jump to his third KBO organization, leaving the Heroes to sign with the Wiz.

Quick Hits: Pirates, Robinson, De La Cruz, NPB/KBO Signings

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The Pirates hired Dewey Robinson as their new special advisor for pitching development, coaching and player development last week (John Dreker of Pirates Prospects was the first to report the news).  Robinson played three seasons with the White Sox from 1979-81, then embarked on a long coaching career that has included stints as the White Sox bullpen coach in 1993-94 and the Astros’ pitching coach in 2008-09.  Robinson also has extensive experience working at the minor league level as a coach and instructor, and has spent the last 12 years working with the Rays, serving as the club’s director of pitching development over the last two seasons.

This time in Tampa Bay overlaps with Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton’s six years as the Rays’ hitting coach, so Shelton and Robinson very likely already have a prior connection.  In the bigger picture, Robinson becomes the latest in a long line of former Rays executives, coaches, and staffers poached by other organizations looking to replicate Tampa’s success at developing young talent (and young pitching in particular).  The rebuilding Pirates have a particular need for arms, as while GM Ben Cherington has done a good job of restocking the farm system during his two-plus years in Pittsburgh, position players make up the majority of the Bucs’ top prospects.

More from around the baseball world….

  • Reds infield prospect Elly De La Cruz received a lot of trade attention this past summer, The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans writes, but Cincinnati “didn’t want anything to do with moving him.”  De La Cruz was an international signing out of the Dominican Republic in 2018, and after a solid Dominican Summer League showing in 2019, he made a big impression in his first season in the North American minor league system.  The 19-year-old hit a combined .296/.336/.538 with eight home runs over 265 plate appearances with the Reds’ rookie ball (55 PA) and A-ball (210 PA) affiliates.  Prospect evaluators took note of the breakout, as Baseball America (4th) and MLB Pipeline (8th) now have De La Cruz entrenched in their rankings of Cincinnati’s top prospects.  BA’s scouting report notes that “there are few players in the majors or minors with three 70s on their scouting report.  De La Cruz is a plus-plus runner with a plus-plus arm and plus-plus raw power.”  Defensively, De La Cruz is a good athlete who might be able to remain at shortstop and could have center field potential, though he has thus far played only shortstop, third base, and some second base in his brief pro career.
  • MLBTR’s readers have surely noticed the number of recent posts on this site about players signing or re-signing with Nippon Professional Baseball or the KBO League.  While it may seem like more players than ever are heading overseas, the volume of NPB/KBO transactions is more a product of “how there’s no MLB activity going on to otherwise overshadow these moves” than a true increase in players signing outside of North America, R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports writes.  It would still be very unlikely to see a truly major name head for Japan or South Korea, as an agency source tells Anderson that “the uncertainty surrounding what the market is going to look like post-lockout is the clearest reason why some of these fringe players are going overseas….the marginal types have zero leverage and teams are going to move through that group of players quickly so more guys are seeking security.”  It is also worth noting that notable players were becoming more open to foreign leagues long before the lockout or even the pandemic (i.e. Adam Jones’ two-year, $8MM deal with the NPB’s Orix Buffaloes in December 2019), as players increasingly see NPB and the KBO League as avenues to rebuild their stock for MLB scouts.

KBO’s Hanwha Eagles Re-Sign Nick Kingham, Ryan Carpenter

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The Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization re-signed right-hander Nick Kingham and left-hander Ryan Carpenter to new one-year contracts earlier this month.  According to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News, Kingham will receive $900K in guaranteed salary, while Carpenter gets $750K.  The new deals represent nice raises for both pitchers, as Carpenter signed for $300K and Kingham for $250K last winter.

Kingham missed much of the 2020 season due to elbow surgery, and made only two starts for the SK Wyverns before the KBO club released him in July 2020.  Looking to rebound with the Eagles, Kingham largely stayed healthy (except for a month-long absence with a lat injury) and posted a 3.19 ERA and 22.16% strikeout rate over 144 innings last season.  As Kingham told Yoo in a recent interview, he believes he can pitch even better in 2022, as he enters the new year focused only on normal offseason preparations without any injury rehab.

After pitching for the Rakuten Monkeys of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in 2020, Carpenter performed well in his debut KBO season.  The southpaw posted a 3.97 ERA and 23.99% strikeout rate over 170 innings for the Eagles, starting 30 of his 31 games.

Both pitchers looked for a fresh start overseas after appearing in parts of the 2018 and 2019 MLB seasons.  Kingham, a former top prospect during his days in the Pirates farm system, has a 6.08 ERA over 131 2/3 career Major League frames with Pittsburgh and Toronto.  All of Carpenter’s big league experience came in a Tigers uniform, as he posted an 8.57 ERA over 63 innings (starting 14 of 15 games) with Detroit.

Rio Ruiz Signs With KBO’s LG Twins

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6:25 pm: The Twins have announced the deal. It’s a one-year, $750K guarantee that contains $250K in possible incentives (h/t to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net).

5:34 pm: Ruiz and the LG Twins are in agreement on a deal, tweets Jon Heyman of the MLB Network.

8:18 am: Third baseman Rio Ruiz is close to joining the LG Twins of Korea Baseball Organization, reports Daniel Kim.  He’ll become teammates with former big leaguers Casey Kelly and Adam Plutko, also signed by the Twins this month.

Ruiz, 28 in May, was drafted by the Astros out of Bishop Amat Memorial High School in the fourth round back in 2012.  The club won him over with a well-above slot $1.85MM bonus to forgo a USC commitment.  That high school’s claim to fame is producing longtime Rangers star Michael Young.  Ruiz was considered a 55 grade prospect after being drafted, with Baseball America drawing a comparison to Eric Chavez on the optimistic side.

Coming up in the minors, it was thought that Ruiz would challenge Colin Moran as the Astros’ third baseman of the future.  Instead, he was shipped to the Braves along with Mike Foltynewicz and Andrew Thurman for Evan Gattis in January 2015 as part of that club’s sell-off.  Ruiz made his MLB debut with the Braves by way of a 2016 September call-up.

Ruiz failed to take off with the Braves, eventually becoming Mike Elias’ first 40-man roster addition as GM of the Orioles in December 2018 via a waiver claim.  The move was fitting, as Elias had served as the Astros’ director of amateur scouting when Ruiz was chosen.  It was 2019 in Baltimore when Ruiz got his most extensive big league look, as he served as the club’s primary third baseman.  Ruiz managed only a 79 wRC+ despite often sitting against lefties.

This spring, Ruiz took up second base in an attempt to increase his versatility.  By May, the Orioles designated him for assignment.  The Rockies claimed Ruiz off waivers, eventually removing him from their 40-man roster in October.

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