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KBO’s Kia Tigers Sign Socrates Brito, Ronnie Williams

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The Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization have signed outfielder Socrates Brito and right-hander Ronnie Williams to one-year contracts, the team announced.  Reports out of South Korea last week indicated that Brito was joining the Gwangju-based team (hat tip to The Athletic’s Sung Min Kim).

MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports that Brito will earn a $600K salary with another $300K available in contract incentives, with the Yonhap News’ Jeeho Yoo noting that $100K of Brito’s guaranteed money is a signing bonus.  Also via Yoo, Williams will get a $300K salary and a $100K signing bonus, with $350K more available in incentives.

Brito has appeared in parts of four MLB seasons, hitting .179/.216/.309 over 218 plate appearances with the Diamondbacks and Blue Jays from 2015-19.  He signed a minor league contract with the Pirates in 2020 and played at the team’s alternate training site, but opted out of the season in September for tragic reasons, as Brito’s brother passed away from COVID-19.  Returning to the field in 2021, Brito hit .251/.315/.376 over 419 PA with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate.

This performance represented a notable step down from Brito’s usual strong Triple-A numbers, as he had always produced in his previous stops with the Diamondbacks’ and Jays’ top farm clubs.  Some dropoff isn’t unusual given a full year away from the game, though it was Brito’s first season outside of a Triple-A environment that was very favorable to hitters.  Arizona’s Triple-A team played in the Pacific Coast League, while the 2019 season (which Brito spent with Toronto’s Buffalo affiliate) saw offensive numbers explode all across Triple-A baseball.

A trip to the KBO League might be what Brito needs to get his career back on track, as he enters his age 29 season.  A noted prospect in his early days with the D’Backs, Brito can play any of the three outfield positions, though he has has more recently been deployed in the corners.

Williams turns 26 in early January, and the righty already has seven seasons of pro experience.  A second-round pick for the Cardinals in the 2014 draft, Williams spent his first six years in the St. Louis organization before the Giants claimed him off waivers last winter.  The Miami native has a 4.24 ERA and 21.41% strikeout rate over 409 1/3 career innings in the minors, pitching mostly as a reliever over his last three seasons.  Only 15 2/3 of those innings came at the Triple-A level, as Williams didn’t reach Triple-A until this year in the Giants’ system.

The $400K (and the incentive possibilities) represent a much higher salary than Williams would have earned in the minors this year, and it makes sense that he would take the guaranteed money now rather than roll the dice on signing another minor league deal and trying to finally crack a big league roster.  The Tigers deal also allows Williams for some chance at reinvention, and a chance to showcase his skills for either further opportunities abroad or for MLB scouts.

Ariel Miranda Re-Signs With KBO’s Doosan Bears

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Coming off a dominant season that saw him win the Korea Baseball Organization’s Choi Dong-won Award (given annually to the best pitcher in the ten-team league), take home the league MVP award, and set a new KBO strikeout record, former Orioles and Mariners starter Ariel Miranda has re-signed with the Doosan Bears (via Yoo Jee-ho of Yonhap News). The deal will pay Miranda the equivalent of $1.9MM for a single season, freeing Miranda to re-evaluate his options next offseason should he wish to return stateside.

Indeed, following a season in which he posted a 2.33 ERA over 173 2/3 innings, the Cuban-born lefty would have been a certainty to generate some interest from big-league clubs. It’s unclear what role the MLB lockout may have played in his decision-making, but his record-setting 225 Ks (2 more than award namesake and KBO legend Choi Dong-won posted in 1984) will have turned at least a few front-office heads. Still, even if Miranda had hoped to take a second stab at the bigs, the $1.9MM he’ll make in 2022 represents a perfectly tidy consolation prize and leaves the door open for an MLB return in his age-34 season. It’s also a significant raise from the $800K he earned in 2021.

After defecting from his native Cuba in early 2015, Miranda signed a minor-league deal with Baltimore in May and made his big-league debut the following July, appearing in one game for the Orioles before heading to Seattle in a trade that send Wade Miley to Baltimore. In 223 innings across parts of three seasons, Miranda posted a 4.72 ERA (5.55 FIP). While his K- and BB-rates (19.9% and 9.1%, respectively) fell only just on the wrong side of league-average, his HR-rate of 5.3% made him a bit of a fringy play in limited action.

Though he consistently outperformed his peripherals (he had a 3.54 ERA against a 5.47 FIP in 56 innings with Seattle in 2016, for instance), the Mariners let Miranda go in 2018. It was then that he pivoted to Asian baseball, signing with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball less than two weeks later. He remained in Japan through the 2019 season before signing with the Chinatrust Brothers of the Taiwan-based Chinese Professional Baseball League for the 2020 season and the Doosan Bears for 2021.

Whether or not Miranda can repeat his stellar 2021 remains to be seen, of course. Across 133 2/3 innings at Japan’s highest level, he posted a solid (if unspectacular) 3.36 ERA to go with 75 walks against only 98 Ks — a similar line to his 3.80 ERA in 156 1/3 innings in Taiwan, though there he struck out 170 while walking 60. After finishing as the runners-up in the 2021 Korean Series, the Doosan Bears will certainly hope their prized Cuban lefty can hold on to whatever he found in 2021.

Hyeon-jong Yang Signs With KBO’s Kia Tigers

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Left-hander Hyeon-jong Yang is officially returning to the Korea Baseball Organization, as the Kia Tigers announced that Yang has signed a four-year deal.  (Hat tip to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News.)  Yang will earn a signing bonus of roughly $2.53MM, and a little over $2.1MM in guaranteed salary over the course of the four-year deal.  A hefty array of incentive bonuses are also available, as Yang can almost double his salary (around $4.04MM) if he hits all of his bonuses.

Yang posted a 5.60 ERA in his lone season in Major League Baseball, tossing 35 1/3 innings with the Rangers in 2021.  After signing a minor league deal last winter, Yang ended up cracking the Texas roster and serving in a swingman role, starting four of his 12 games.  Not a big strikeout pitcher even in his heyday in the KBO League, Yang didn’t miss many bats in the majors (15.6% strikeout rate) and he had plenty of trouble with the long ball, allowing nine homers in his brief time on the big league mound.

The Rangers sent Yang back and forth from Triple-A on a couple of occasions before ultimately designating him for assignment in September.  Yang elected to become a free agent after the season, and early reports indicated that he was looking at returning to South Korea, and in particular a return to the Tigers, his longtime team.

As Yoo writes, there were a few hurdles to be jumped in negotiations between the two sides, with the larger amount of incentives reflecting the Tigers’ wariness about Yang’s struggles over the last two seasons.  Even before heading to MLB, Yang posted a 4.70 ERA over 172 1/3 innings with the Gwangju-based team in 2020.

This was the worst full-season performance of Yang’s 14-year stint with the Tigers, though given his long history of success with the team, it isn’t surprising that the Tigers were interested in a reunion.  Yang has a 3.83 ERA and a 19.77% strikeout rate over 1986 career innings in the KBO League (all with the Tigers), and he is a two-time winner of the Dong-won Choi Award as the league’s best starting pitcher.  Yang was also named MVP of the KBO League as a whole in 2017, as well as Korean Series MVP as he led the Tigers to the championship.

KBO’s Lotte Giants Sign Charlie Barnes

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The Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization announced they’ve signed left-hander Charlie Barnes. The former Minnesota Twins southpaw will receive a $610K guarantee, according to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap. (Brandon Warne of Access Twins was first to report Barnes was signing with Lotte).

A fourth-round pick out of Clemson in 2017, Barnes steadily progressed through the Twins system. He reached the big leagues this year, ultimately making nine appearances (eight starts) for Minnesota down the stretch. He posted a 5.92 ERA over 38 innings while only striking out 11.4% of opposing hitters. After the season, the Twins outrighted Barnes off their 40-man roster.

While it wasn’t an illustrious debut showing, the 26-year-old has generally been effective throughout his minor league tenure. He owns an ERA below 4.00 at every stop through Double-A, and while he struggled during a brief end-of-season stint at Triple-A in 2019, he’d been better there this past season. Barnes tossed 76 innings with the Twins’ top affiliate in St. Paul, posting a 3.79 ERA. That came with a below-average 19.1% strikeout percentage, but Barnes’ 7.4% walk rate and 46.7% ground-ball rate were each a bit better than the league average.

That showing was enough to attract the attention of the Busan-based Giants. While Barnes didn’t have the requisite service time to reject the Twins’ outright assignment, the organization evidently granted him his release to make the move to South Korea. That allows the South Carolina native to lock in a guaranteed salary for 2022 that’s better than he’d have made during his time in Triple-A. If Barnes performs well enough in the KBO to embark upon a major league return at some point down the line, he might also field MLB offers that surpass the near-league minimum salaries he’d have earned over his first few seasons had he remained with Minnesota.

In addition to the Barnes deal, the Giants also confirmed their previously-reported agreement with Glenn Sparkman. As Yoo points out, Barnes, Sparkman and DJ Peters are now locked in as the Giants’ three allotted foreign-born players. That officially closes the books on any chance of Dan Straily and Enderson Franco — both of whom pitched for the Giants last year — returning to the club in 2022.

Sung-bum Na Signs With KBO’s Kia Tigers

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The Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization announced a six-year contract with free agent outfielder Sung-bum Na. The deal is worth $12.6MM, a figure that’s tied for the loftiest deal in KBO history (h/t to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap).

Na has appeared on major league radars in each of the past two offseasons. Na’s former team, the NC Dinos, made him available to big league clubs via the posting system last winter. His 30-day window to sign with an MLB team went without an agreement, though, and Na returned to the Dinos this past season.

This winter, Na qualified for domestic free agency in South Korea but remained one year away from unrestricted international free agency. Major League Baseball tendered a status check on Na last month, indicating that at least one major league team expressed interest in the left-handed hitter.

Obviously, Na’s deal with the Tigers forecloses the possibility of his making the jump to the big leagues this year. In all likelihood, it closes the books on any potential MLB future for Na, who turned 32 years old in October. The six-year term will keep him with the Tigers through the end of his age-37 campaign. It seems unlikely he’d make the move stateside at that point of his career.

Na has spent nine seasons playing in Korea’s top league. He’d spent his entire career to date with the Dinos, combining for an impressive .312/.378/.538 line. This past season, Na hit .281/.337/.506 with 32 home runs across 565 plate appearances. That’s not quite his peak form, although that output still checked in 24 points above the KBO league average by measure of wRC+.

Drew Rucinski, Wes Parsons Re-Sign With KBO’s NC Dinos

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Right-handers Drew Rucinski and Wes Parsons have re-signed with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization for the 2022 season, reports Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. Rucinski will be guaranteed $1.9MM with another $100K of incentives available, tying him for the second-largest salary of any foreign player in the KBO, per Yoo. Parsons, meanwhile, receives $550K in guarantees, plus another $250K of available incentives.

After totaling 54 innings in a nondescript big league career that included stops with the Angels (2014-15), Twins (2017) and Marlins (2018), Rucinski has emerged as one of the top arms in the KBO. He’s started exactly 30 games in each of the past three seasons, averaging 179 2/3 frames per year and posting consecutive ERAs of 3.05, 3.05 and 3.17 from 2019-21. This past season, Rucinski posted the highest strikeout rate (23.5%) and ground-ball rate (a massive 67.8%) of his KBO career. His 7.3% walk rate was strong as well, and he yielded just 12 homers on the year (0.60 HR/9).

Rucinski will turn 33 next week and would be 34 by the time he could plausibly pitch in the Majors again, but given his standout work in the KBO and his eye-popping ground-ball rates, it’s feasible that he could draw MLB interest on next offseason’s market. He’s now racked up a total of 539 innings with a 3.09 ERA, a 20.5% strikeout rate and a 6.9% ground-ball rate during his time in the KBO. Batted-ball data for Rucinski’s first season in South Korea isn’t publicly available, but last year’s ground-ball rate was no fluke; he sat a 63.8% in 2020 and has a combined 65.7% mark over the past two seasons. At the very least, one would imagine that next winter, in a more stable free-agent climate, Rucinski could pique the interest of big league teams with strong infield defenses.

As he enters his fourth season in the KBO, Rucinski has now guaranteed himself $5.7MM over a four-year term in Korea (not including any of the incentives in his prior deals or this upcoming contract). For an undrafted player who had three stints with the independent Rockford RiverHawks of the Frontier League before even finding consistent minor league work, it’s a fairly remarkable journey — and an encouraging tale for players who continue to grind through minimal pay on the minor league and indie circuits.

As for Parsons, who turned 29 back in September, he was also an undrafted minor league free agent who now finds himself on a similar trajectory. His first two contracts in the KBO have been more modest than those of Rucinski, but he’s secured himself more than a million dollars in total after a seven-year minor league journey netted him just 39 2/3 innings in the Majors with the Braves. Parsons tallied 133 innings during his first season with the Dinos in 2021, pitching to a 3.72 ERA with a 25.6% strikeout rate, a 10.9% walk rate and an excellent 64.3% ground-ball rate of his own.

KBO’s NC Dinos Sign Nick Martini

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DECEMBER 20: The Dinos officially announced Martini’s deal (h/t to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News). He’ll receive $550K in guaranteed money, with an additional $250K available in incentives.

DECEMBER 16: Outfielder Nick Martini is in discussions with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization, according to a report from Naver Sports (h/t to Sung Min Kim). If a deal is finalized, the 31-year-old will make the jump to South Korea after spending the past eleven years in affiliated ball.

Martini has suited up in the majors in three of the last four seasons. The left-handed hitter broke in with an impressive .296/.397/.414 line across 179 plate appearances with the A’s in 2018. Martini didn’t get much of an opportunity to follow up on that strong rookie showing, though, struggling to a .226/.330/.323 mark in 109 trips to the dish between Oakland and the Padres the following season. He didn’t appear in the big leagues in 2020, although the Illinois native returned to play in 25 games with his hometown Cubs this past season. Chicago outrighted Martini off their 40-man roster at the end of the year, and he elected minor league free agency shortly thereafter.

While Martini doesn’t have a particularly lengthy track record in the majors, he owns a strong minor league resume. Over parts of six Triple-A seasons, he’s a .298/.399/.437 hitter. Martini has walked in a robust 13.4% of his plate appearances at the minors’ highest level while only punching out 17.8% of the time. He’s mostly limited to the corner outfield and doesn’t bring a ton of power to the table, but that combination of a keen eye and strong bat-to-ball skills should allow Martini to continue to post strong on-base marks if he makes the jump to the KBO.

Were Martini’s agreement to be finalized, that’d officially close the book on the possibility of Aaron Altherr returning to the Dinos. KBO teams are only permitted to carry three foreign players on their rosters, and the Dinos already employ pitchers Drew Rucinski and Wes Parsons. Altherr has spent the past two seasons with the Dinos, hitting .276/.354/.529 as the club’s regular center fielder. Naver reports that the team had interest in keeping the 30-year-old (31 next month) in the fold, but Altherr has explored the possibility of returning to MLB or making the jump to Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball this offseason.

KBO’s SSG Landers Sign Ivan Nova

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The SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization announced they’ve signed longtime big league starter Iván Nova (h/t to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News). It’s a $900K guarantee that could top out at $1MM, the maximum allowed for a first-year foreign born player, if Nova reaches all the deal’s incentives.

It’ll be the first playing experience outside of North America for Nova, who turns 35 years old next month. The righty signed with the Yankees as an amateur free agent coming out of the Dominican Republic back in 2004. He made his big league debut with New York in 2010 and spent the next five seasons as a member of the rotation. Nova posted an ERA below 4.00 in both 2011 and 2013, although he generally offered average production on a rate basis while soaking up innings at the back of the rotation.

The Yankees traded Nova to the Pirates at the 2016 deadline, and he spent the next two and a half seasons offering similarly decent bulk frames in Pittsburgh. Nova tossed 187 innings of 4.72 ERA ball in 2019, although that’s the last extended action he’s logged in the majors. He made just four starts with the Tigers in 2020 and didn’t pitch in affiliated ball this year. While Nova signed a minor league contract with the Rockies in April, he was released a few weeks later without seeing any game action.

Nova would surely have been limited to minor league contracts had he sought out opportunities in affiliated ball this winter. Instead, he’ll lock in some guaranteed money and presumably get a rotation job with the Landers. It’s not of the question Nova could attract MLB interest next offseason if he performs well in South Korea.

KBO’s Samsung Lions Re-Sign Jose Pirela, David Buchanan

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The Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization announced yesterday that they’ve re-signed former big leaguers José Pirela and David Buchanan. Pirela will be guaranteed $800K, with an additional $400K in available incentives; Buchanan is guaranteed $1.2MM, with $500K possible in incentives (via Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net).

Pirela, 32, suited up in the majors each season from 2014-19. The right-handed hitter spent his first two seasons with the Yankees, then logged three-plus years with the Padres and had a brief stop with the Phillies. He posted a .257/.308/.392 line in just more than 300 MLB games before making the jump to Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball over the 2019-20 offseason.

After a year with the Hiroshima Carp, Pirela moved to South Korea last winter. He hooked on with the Lions and hit a strong .284/.357/.490 with 28 home runs over 616 plate appearances. That showing impressed the Daegu-based club enough they’ll bring him back for a second season.

Buchanan spent two seasons in the big leagues, serving as a member of the Phillies’ rotation from 2014-15. The righty tossed 192 1/3 innings of 5.01 ERA ball in Philadelphia before heading to Japan in advance of the 2017 campaign. After three seasons with the Yakult Swallows, the Georgia native signed with the Lions for 2020.

He’s spent the past two seasons in the Samsung rotation, tossing 348 innings in Korea’s top league. Buchanan has an impressive 3.21 ERA in that time, striking out 19.1% of opponents while walking only 7.2% of batters faced.

KBO’s SSG Landers Re-Sign Wilmer Font

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The SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization have officially re-signed right-hander Wilmer Font to a one-year deal that includes a $1.1MM base salary and a $200K signing bonus, tweets Daniel Kim of MBC Sports. Font can also earn an additional $200K via incentives.

It’ll be the second season with the Landers for Font, who earned an even $1MM in a successful debut campaign. The 31-year-old righty stepped right into the Landers’ rotation and made 25 starts, pitching to a 3.46 ERA with a strong 26% strikeout rate, a 7.5% walk rate and a 55% ground-ball rate that towers over any ground-ball percentage posted by Font during his six big league seasons. Font also induced a whopping 26 infield flies — just over a quarter of the fly-balls he allowed were harmless pop-ups — and surrendered only a dozen long balls on the season (0.74 HR/9).

Prior to signing in South Korea, Font had quickly become a well-traveled big league journeyman. While the results weren’t strong, teams continued to be enamored of Font’s raw movement and velocity; he was designated for assignment four times from April 2018 to July 2019 but traded each time before even reaching waivers, as he went from the Dodgers to the A’s, from Oakland to Tampa Bay, from the Rays to the Mets, and from the Mets to the Blue Jays.

Along the way, Font posted an unsightly 5.54 ERA but averaged better than a punchout per frame while sitting just shy of 95 mph with his fastball. His best work came with the Rays, for whom he pitched to a 3.o7 ERA with a 22.8% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate through 41 innings from 2018-19. However, Font struggled with Tampa Bay early in 2019, pushing the Rays to DFA him — at which point the Mets offered up a young pitcher (minor league righty Neraldo Catalina) to take their own shot on him.

With another strong season in the KBO, it stands to reason that Font could garner free-agent interest from either Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan or from Major League teams. The newfound ground-ball rate is of particular intrigue, given Font’s career 38% mark in 151 2/3 Major League innings. For now, he’ll take home a second straight seven-figure salary — no small sum for a player who has spent 14 years in professional baseball but had yet to even go through arbitration in the Majors.

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