KBO emerging as new MLB pipeline

Texas Rangers’ Choo Shin-soo, center, celebrates with teammate Ryan Rua, left, after scoring off a sacrifice-fly from Rougned Odor, not pictured, as San Diego Padres pitcher Andrew Cashner, right, walks back to the mound in the first inning of a spring training baseball game in Peoria, Ariz., Tuesday. / AP-Yonhap

By Baek Byung-yeul

As more Koreans are joining Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) players are receiving greater attention.

Sports on Earth, a website operated by MLB Advanced Media, is the latest media outlet reporting on the moves. In its Monday edition, the online sports website posted an article with the title, “Korean players make mark on MLB.”

The article begins with the Texas Rangers outfielder Choo Shin-soo emphasizing the time he spent in the minors before he advanced to the majors, then explaining how the new crop of Korean-born players have migrated to MLB in a different and more direct way.

“Ryu Hyun-jin’s initial success with the Dodgers was important. But Kang Jung-ho’s stellar, albeit injury shortened, rookie year with the Pirates after nine seasons in the KBO was the true game-changer that has legitimized the jump straight from KBO to MLB and opened the door for others,” the website reported.

Sports on Earth said Kang’s success is helping Korea become like Cuba in terms of the resources and dollars baseball clubs will be willing to commit for talent.

“We saw this with Cuba when Alexei Ramirez came over. Once players come over and start having success in the big leagues, you have a better understanding of the data and the comparisons. So when Kang comes over and does well, all of a sudden you’ve got a huge database by which to judge every other player in that league,” the Oakland Athletics general manager David Forst was quoted as saying in the article.

Comparing the KBO with Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the article also said Korean players have more similarities with MLB players in that they rely more on power than finesse.

“Japan just has way more depth and still plays a better game,” a national league scout was quoted as saying in the article. “The difference to me is that the Korean game is more like our game. So this is a transitional time. Korea used to be a market just for amateur players ― Choo and a few scattered pitchers, the exceptions. Now, it makes more sense for a player to stay on a KBO team and play for eight to ten years and then transition to an MLB team while still in their physical prime.”

A scout for the Minnesota Twins also said his team was “not surprised that more players from Korea are trying to jump to MLB.”

“There have been good players coming out of Korea for quite a long time,” Howard Norsetter, the Twins international scouting coordinator, told Minnesota’s local newspaper, The Star Tribune. “Korean teams have done a good job of holding on to their players so the level of baseball in Korea over the last 10 to 15 years has really improved.”