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Hyeon-jong Yang Likely Headed Back To KBO

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Former Rangers hurler Hyeon-jong Yang apparently won’t be giving MLB a second go. Yoo Jee-ho of the Yonhap News Agency reports that Yang is likely to return to the Korea Baseball Organization. Before signing with Texas earlier this year, Yang spent 14 seasons with the KBO’s Kia Tigers. Representatives for the team recently told reporters that Yang expressed interest in rejoining the club and that they would attempt to re-sign him.

Now 33 years old, Yang enjoyed a great deal of success with Kia, including winning the regular season and Korean Series MVP trophies in 2017. He appeared in 425 games with the Tigers, posting a 147-95 record and 3.83 ERA.

Unfortunately, those numbers didn’t translate well to the big leagues. Yang signed a minor league deal with Texas on February 12 of this year. He didn’t break camp with the Rangers, but was called up on April 26. He appeared in eight games over the next seven weeks, including four starts, but was mostly ineffective. Over 29 innings he put up a 5.59 ERA and 6.55 FIP. He was then designated for assignment, cleared waivers and assigned to the Round Rock Express, Texas’ Triple-A affiliate. He spent the rest of the season bouncing between Round Rock and Arlington, with similar results.

After being outrighted to Round Rock in mid-September, Yang elected to become a free agent on October 4, setting up a possible return to the KBO.

KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes Acquire Will Craig

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The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization have acquired first baseman Will Craig (hat tip to reporters Sung Min Kim and The Yonhap News’ Jeeho Yoo).  Craig will earn $371K for the remainder of the KBO season according to Yoo, while MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports a $425K salary.

Craig was most recently a member of the Pirates, and GM Ben Cherington said over the weekend that Craig had been given permission to look into opportunities with Asian teams.  Pittsburgh has designated Craig for assignment and outrighted him off its 40-man roster twice, with the most recent outright assignment coming last month.

Craig has spent his entire professional career with the Pirates, beginning after the Bucs selected him with the 22nd overall pick of the 2016 draft.  He has a .261/.351/.421 slash line over 2060 career plate appearances in the minor leagues, mostly playing first baseman but also getting some as a third baseman and right fielder.  After being selected for Pittsburgh’s alternate training site in 2020, Craig made his MLB debut with two games last season, and then appeared in 18 games for the Pirates this year.

In 69 PA in the majors, Craig has hit .203/.261/.281 with one home run (in his first game of the 2021 season).  Unfortunately for Craig, his most famous moment as a big leaguer was a uniquely memorable fielding error against the Cubs this season, when he engaged in a rundown with batter Javier Baez between first base and home plate rather than just step on first base to retire Baez on a routine grounder.

As noted by Kim, Craig will replace David Freitas as the foreign-born position player on the Heroes roster.  Freitas was placed on waivers by the Seoul-based team last month.

KBO’s Hanwha Eagles Sign Hernan Perez, Release Ryon Healy

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July 6: The Eagles have announced the signing. Perez will earn $400K total — $300K in salary plus a $100K signing bonus — for the remainder of the season, per Jee-ho Yoo of the Yonhap News Agency.

July 4, 11:49 am: Pérez is indeed being granted his release to sign with the Eagles, he confirms to Adam McCalvy of MLB.com (Twitter thread).

8:35 am: The Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization announced they’ve released first baseman Ryon Healy (h/t to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News). Utilityman Hernán Pérez is among the candidates to replay Healy on the roster, the Eagles confirmed.

The Eagles signed Healy to a one-year deal with an $800K guarantee last December. The hope was the 29-year-old would settle in as a middle-of-the-order force, but that didn’t prove to be the case. Through 268 plate appearances, Healy hit .257/.306/.394 with seven home runs.

Despite the underwhelming showing in the KBO, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Healy attract some interest from MLB teams on minor league deals if he’s now set to return to the United States. He appeared in the big leagues with the A’s, Mariners and Brewers between 2016-20, compiling an overall league average .261/.298/.450 line through 1606 trips to the plate. Healy broke in to the majors as a third baseman but saw increasing action at first base later in his big league tenure and was used exclusively at first with the Eagles.

Pérez signed a minor league deal with the Brewers in May and is with their Triple-A affiliate in Nashville. He’s gotten off to a fantastic .357/.396/.536 start across 91 plate appearances with the Sounds. Milwaukee has since acquired Willy Adames to play shortstop, though. That bumped Luis Urías to third base, which has coincided with an uptick in the latter’s offensive production. Second baseman Kolten Wong is currently on the 10-day injured list, but that’s expected to be a short-term stint, and utilityman Jace Peterson has been fantastic off the bench. It’s possible the Milwaukee front office doesn’t see an immediate role available for Pérez, regardless of his performance in Nashville.

If Pérez does wind up signing with the Eagles, he’ll assuredly land a better salary than he’s currently earning in the minors. The 30-year-old has appeared in the majors in each of the past ten seasons, including a ten-game stint with the Nationals earlier this year. Through 1846 plate appearances (the majority of which came in a previous stint with the Brewers), Pérez has hit .250/.280/.352 (72 wRC+) while appearing at every defensive position other than catcher.

KBO’s LG Twins Sign Justin Bour

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The LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization announced that they’ve signed former big league first baseman Justin Bour for the remainder of the 2021 season (link via Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency). Bour will be paid $350K for the remainder of the season.

Bour, 33, signed a minor league deal with the Giants after Spring Training had begun and opened the 2021 season with their top affiliate in Sacramento. He’s out to a .213/.346/.426 start to the season with six homers, five doubles, a strong 15.4 percent walk rate and a 23 percent strikeout rate in Triple-A. The former Marlins, Phillies and Angels first baseman spent the 2020 season with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Hanshin Tigers in Japan, hitting at a .243/.338/.422 clip with 17 long balls and eight doubles in 379 trips to the plate.

It’s been a couple years since we’ve seen Bour in the Majors and a bit longer than that since we saw him at his best. From 2014-17, Bour hit .273/.346/.489 as the Marlins’ primary first baseman — including a monstrous .289/.366/.536, 25-homer showing back in 2017 (134 wRC+, 143 OPS+). Bour was an above-average hitter in each of his five seasons with the Fish, but his production dropped precipitously following a 2018 trade to the Phillies and fell off even further with the Angels in 2019.

Bour is replacing first baseman Roberto Ramos on the roster for the Twins. Ramos, 26, took the KBO by storm last year in his debut campaign when he hit .278/.362/.592 with 38 home runs, 17 doubles and a pair of triples. The former Rockies prospect has been hindered by a lower back injury throughout the 2021 season, however, and has now been out of action for the Twins since June 9. He batted .243/.317/.422 through 205 plate appearances before the injury sidelined him.

KBO’s KT Wiz Sign Jared Hoying

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The KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization have signed outfielder Jared Hoying to a contract for the rest of the 2021, the team announced (hat tip to reporter Daniel Kim).  Hoying elected to become a free agent after the Blue Jays outrighted him off their 40-man roster earlier this week.

Hoying is no stranger to the KBO, as he hit .284/.345/.498 with 52 homers and 50 steals (in 69 chances) over 1249 plate appearances with the Hanwha Eagles from 2018-20.  After signing a minor league deal with Toronto in May, he ended up playing in two games for the Jays, representing Hoying’s first MLB action since the 2017 season when he was a member of the Rangers.

Originally a 10th-round pick for the Rangers in the 2010 draft, Hoying hit .220/.262/.288 over 126 PA with Texas in 2016-17, and then spent a bit of time in the Angels organization before signing with the Eagles prior to the 2018 campaign.

NPB/KBO Notes: Smoak, Sparkman, Freitas

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Veteran first baseman Justin Smoak, who’d signed with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball over the winter, has returned to the United States to be with his family, the Japan Times recently reported. The 34-year-old switch-hitter was productive in his limited run for the second-place Giants, slashing .272/.336/.482 with seven homers and three doubles in 34 games, but Giants representative Atsuhiro Otsuka told the Times that Smoak’s “love of family outweighed everything else.” As the Times’ Jason Coskrey writes in a second column, the Giants attempted to find ways to reunite the family in Japan, but current travel restrictions there made that impossible.

Smoak’s wife, Kristin, shared a heartwarming video of him returning home to surprise his daughters (Twitter link), calling it a “terribly tough decision” and noting the “amazing” support and understanding the Giants provided throughout the situation. Kristin Smoak later tweeted that the family has been “blown away by the genuine kindness and understanding we have received” from NPB fans.

A few more notes out of Japan and South Korea…

  • The Orix Buffaloes announced this week that they’ve signed right-hander Glenn Sparkman to a contract for the remainder of the season (Yahoo Japan link). He’ll take the roster spot of righty Brandon Dickson, who recently returned to the U.S. to sign a minor league deal with the Cardinals. Sparkman was on a minor league deal with the Twins earlier this year but was released in mid-May. He’s spent parts of four straight seasons in the Majors (2017-20), including a 2019 campaign in which he racked up 136 1/3 innings for the Royals. Sparkman has just a 5.99 ERA in 180 1/3 MLB frames, but he carries a career 2.88 ERA in 378 2/3 minor league innings — including a 3.51 mark in parts of four Triple-A seasons.
  • The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization announced that they’ve placed designated hitter/catcher/first baseman David Freitas on waivers (link via Jee-ho Yoo of the Yonhap News Agency). They’re now in the mix for a new bat to add to the lineup. Freitas, 32, was the Heroes’ primary designated hitter but slashed a fairly tepid .259/.297/.374 with two homers and 10 doubles in 148 plate appearances. The former Braves, Mariners and Brewers catcher posted a ridiculous .381/.461/.561 line in 382 Triple-A plate appearances back in 2019 and has a generally strong track record at that level, but he’s yet to produce much in the game’s top leagues in North America or South Korea.

KBO’s SSG Landers Sign Sam Gaviglio

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The SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization have signed former Mariners, Blue Jays and Royals right-hander Sam Gaviglio for the remainder of the season, the team announced (hat tip: Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, on Twitter). The KVA Sports client was on a minor league deal with the Rangers, who have announced the sale of his contract to the Landers. Gaviglio will earn a $246K salary in addition to a $100K signing bonus, per Yoo.

Gaviglio, 31, had tossed 26 1/3 innings in Triple-A Round Rock while awaiting a big league opportunity in Texas, but he’ll now take a guaranteed six-figure payday for a bit more than a half season’s work to close out the 2021 campaign. The move overseas also serves as something of an audition for him; if he throws well with the Landers, he could very well earn an offer to return in 2022 or generate interest elsewhere in the KBO or Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. A strong performance could also earn him another look back with a big league club.

A fifth-rounder by the Cardinals back in 2011, Gaviglio made his MLB debut with the 2017 Mariners. He spent parts of the next four seasons in the big leagues, tallying a combined total of 296 2/3 innings and pitching to a 4.88 ERA with a 19.1 percent strikeout rate and a 7.2 percent walk rate.

Gaviglio has worked as both a starter and a reliever in the Majors, but he appears ticketed for the Landers’ rotation. Yoo notes that he’ll be taking the roster spot of right-hander Artie Lewicki, who started four games for the Landers before a pectoral injury sidelined him for the foreseeable future.

Mike Montgomery To Sign With KBO’s Samsung Lions

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Veteran left-hander Mike Montgomery will finalize a contract with the Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization today, MLBTR has confirmed. Naver Sports in South Korea first reported that a deal between the Lions and the Ballengee Group client was “likely.”

Montgomery, 31, was in Spring Training with the Mets but didn’t land a roster spot. He quickly signed with the Yankees back on April 5, but his minor league deal contained an opt-out clause that he’s now exercised. Montgomery was hit hard in a tiny sample of 16 2/3 innings with the Yankees’ top affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but he of course has a rather successful track record in parts of six Major League seasons.

The No. 36 overall pick by the Royals back in 2008, Montgomery was traded to the Rays 2012’s Wil Myers/James Shields/Jake Odorizzi deal before being flipped to the Mariners in exchange for Erasmo Ramirez in 2015. A third trade in 2016 then sent him to the Cubs in exchange for Daniel Vogelbach, and the Cubs completed the circle when they traded him back to Kansas City in a 2019 swap that sent Martin Maldonado to Chicago.

Montgomery has spent the bulk of his career in Chicago but also appeared with Seattle and Kansas City. On the whole, he’s put together a 3.84 ERA in 541 Major League frames, striking out 18 percent of his opponents against an 8.8 percent walk rate. He’s also generated grounders at a healthy 53.6 percent clip during his big league tenure. He opened the 2020 season on the Royals’ staff but was ultimately limited to just 5 1/3 innings after suffering a lat strain that sent him to the 60-day injured list. That marked the second straight season in which a lat strain had sidelined Montgomery.

According to the Naver report, the Lions are on the lookout for a replacement for right-hander Ben Lively, who was recently diagnosed with a shoulder injury. Montgomery would step onto the Lions’ roster as their second foreign pitcher, the maximum allowed under KBO rules, joining former Phillies righty David Buchanan, who has been excellent for the Lions since joining them for the 2020 season.

Montgomery will have the opportunity to finish out the 2021 season with the Lions. If he enjoys success in his new environs, that could lead to either an offer to return in 2022 or perhaps interest elsewhere overseas or back in North America.

KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes Acquire Jake Brigham, Waive Josh A. Smith

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The Korea Baseball Organization’s Kiwoom Heroes have made an early change in their rotation involving a pair of former big league pitchers. Per Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, the Heroes announced that they’ve reacquired righty Jake Brigham and waived right-hander Josh A. Smith.

Brigham had been pitching with the Wei Chuan Dragons Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. He’ll finish out the remainder of the month with the Dragons, per the report, then join the Heroes after a two-week quarantine period. It’s not clear what type of compensation the two clubs will exchange, but Brigham will be guaranteed $480K for the remainder of the season with another $50K available via incentives.

Now 33 years old, Brigham was a sixth-round pick by the Rangers back in 2006 and for a few years was considered to be among their top 30 prospects. He was traded to the Cubs in the deal that sent Geovany Soto to Texas back in 2012, and he bounced to several teams thereafter. Brigham appeared in a dozen games with the 2015 Braves but was hit hard, and that still stands as his only MLB experience to date.

Despite a lack of success in North American ball, Brigham has carved out quite a nice career pitching in Asia. A brief stint with Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles in 2016 didn’t bear much fruit, but he signed with the Heroes in 2017 and spent the next four seasons as a key piece of their rotation. From 2017-20, Brigham racked up 608  1/3 innings and pitched to a 3.70 ERA with a 19.7 percent strikeout rate and a tiny 6.3 percent walk rate.

Brigham was out to a very strong start in Taiwan this year, pitching to a 0.63 ERA with 15 strikeouts against three walks in 28 2/3 frames. That, it seems, was enough to convince the Heroes that he was past the elbow issues which plagued him during 2020 and prompted the team to move in another direction.

As for Smith, his time with the Heroes will prove quite limited. He made just two starts after signing a one-year deal that came with a $500K salary. Smith pitched just 10 innings and was tagged for seven runs on nine hits and five walks with nine strikeouts.

Smith, 33, has quite a bit more Major League experience than Brigham and was in the bigs as recently as last season, when he tossed 26 1/3 innings for the Marlins. He’s also spent time with the Reds, A’s and Red Sox, logging a collective 5.60 ERA (4.72 SIERA) with an 18 percent strikeout rate, a 9.7 percent walk rate and a 40.6 percent ground-ball rate through 184 2/3 innings at the MLB level.

Shin-Soo Choo Signs With SK Wyverns

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Longtime major league outfielder Shin-Soo Choo is joining the SK Wyverns of the Korea Baseball Organization, Tae Woo Kim of SPOTV reports (h/t: Sung Min Kim, on Twitter). He’ll earn $2.4MM in 2021, Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net tweets.

This is a homecoming for the 38-year-old Choo, a South Korea native who played in the majors with the Mariners, Reds, Indians and Rangers from 2005-20. His greatest long-term success came in Cleveland, where the on-base machine batted .292/.383/.463 with 83 home runs and 85 stolen bases in 2,932 plate appearances. But Choo was also an above-average performer in Cincinnati and Texas, evidenced in part by the one-time All-Star’s lifetime .275/.377/.447 line with 218 HRs, 157 steals and 35.4 fWAR over 7,157 trips to the plate.

The 2020 campaign was the last season of the seven-year, $130MM guarantee Choo signed with the Rangers before 2014, and it was his worst offensive effort for the club. Choo hit .236/.323/.400 with five homers in 127 PA, dividing his time between the corner outfield and designated hitter.

Choo has had difficulty in the field throughout his career (minus-68 Defensive Runs Saved, minus-36.4 Ultimate Zone Rating), and with his age and fading offensive numbers also factored in, it appeared he would have trouble landing a guaranteed major league deal in free agency. He’s now heading back to his native country for the largest single-season payday in KBO history, per Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News.

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