By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
When the Samsung Lions won their first Korean Series title in 2002, Ma Hae-young, whose dramatic walk-off home run in Game 6 became the Korean equivalent of the Kurt Gibson blast, was the difference. Four seasons later, the 37-year-old first baseman is all but gone from the game.
As the SK Wyverns and Doosan Bears commence battle in the best-of-seven championship series, the league's six other clubs are left retooling for next season, which as usual, starts by shedding their declining veterans off the payroll.
The Seoul-based LG Twins recently released seven veteran players, including Ma and former closer Jin Pil-joong, and look to rebuild around their young players, indicating a change in their ``win-now'' strategy of the past few years.
Ma, the 1999 season batting champ and considered among the country's top right-handed hitters for most of his career, saw his effectiveness decline sharply in recent years, appearing in just 11 games for the Twins this season and hitting .071.
Despite his struggles at the plate, Ma was one of the highest paid hitters in the league, thanks to his four-year, 2.8 billion won ($3 million) contract with the KIA Tigers ahead of the 2004 season.
Ma insists that he has some years left in him and will take a drastic pay cut to continue playing. However, it's questionable whether any club would gamble on a player of Ma's caliber, when his stat sheets since his trade to the Twins last season are full of blanks.
However, Ma was not the most overpaid veteran on his own team. Jin, who led the Doosan Bears to the Korean Series title in 2001 as their closer, was never the same pitcher since signing a four-year free agent contract with the Twins for the 2004 season.
One of the league's highest paid pitchers with a 400 million won salary, Jin appeared in 25 games in 2006 and went 0-3 while failing to post a single save, and was demoted to the farm team this season.
Jin did make plenty of noise off the mound, as he is pushing legal action against the Twins, who gave the 35-year-old a pay cut citing a league rule that allow clubs such options when a player with a salary higher than 200 million won fails to finish the season on the first-team roster.
Despite having one of the league's highest payrolls, the Twins finished fifth in the pennant race and failed to secure a playoff berth.
The last-place KIA Tigers are looking for radical changes, releasing a total of 14 players, including 35-year-old outfielder Cho Kyung-hwan, as they look to rebuild around young talent and draft picks.
Korean baseball's proudest franchise has been reduced to a laughing stock in recent years, due to the team's aging core and a series of front office blunders.
The Samsung Lions, the team with the league's highest payroll, released 16 players as manager Sun Dong-yeol looks to revamp the squad after a disappointing first-round exit in this year's playoffs. Among the players receiving pink slips are 35-year-old utility man Kim Jong-hoon and 34-year-old outfielder Kim Dai-ik, although both players are good bets to land new jobs at other clubs looking for a veteran presence on the bench.
The most unusual move comes from the Lotte Giants, which released 10 players, including 35-year-old outfielder Choi Kyung-hwan, and 32-year-old starter Park Ji-cheol. It bears further watching whether the Giants are pulling the trigger to quickly on Choi, who hit at the heart of the order for the Bears two years ago and still produces when healthy. Perhaps, the club couldn't fathom that the player they gave up for Choi in the 2006 trade _ 24-year-old slugger Choi Joon-suk _ emerged as the cleanup hitter for the Bears this season.
Park, whose moving fastball and big curve earned him the nickname of the ``Korean Pedro Martinez'' years ago, could also haunt the Giants with a possible comeback with another club. His best year came in 1997, when he went 14-5 with a 2.98 ERA. But his career has slowed with injuries since then, and he appeared in only 18 games for the Giants this season. However, he did pitch more than 130 innings as recently as 2004, the last time he was healthy for the majority of a season, and went 9-7 with a respectable 3.87 ERA as a starter.
Park, who insists he is fully recovered from a knee injury that bothered him the past two seasons, still has the stuff to be an effective reliever out of the bullpen.