Home > Sports > Baseball

KBO to introduce salary cap from next season

Published: 15 Nov. 2022, 09:12

The SSG Landers players throw Shinsegae Group Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin in the air as they celebrate winning the 2022 Korean Series at Incheon SSG Landers Field in Incheon on Nov. 8. [YONHAP]

The KBO has introduced a salary cap at just under 11 and a half billion won ($8.7 million) for the next three seasons in a bid to increase fairness and ensure a level playing field.

The cap is set at 11,426,380,000 won, a figure that the league arrived at after at the average combined salary of the top-40 highest paid players at each club over the last two years, excluding foreign players and rookies.

If a team breaks the salary cap they will have to pay 50 percent of the excess in a fine to the league. Repeat offenders will have to pay the entire excess in a fine and fall nine spots in the following year’s rookie draft.

Three teams would have broken that salary cap this season.

The SSG Landers paid out over 24.8 billion won, more than double the new salary cap. The Samsung Lions paid 12.8 billion won and the NC Dinos paid 12.5 billion won.
All three teams have a number of players up for free agency this year, which should help lower that total output. The Landers also have a number of veteran players on contracts that pay more in the early years, lowering their bill next year.

The Hanwha Eagles and the Kiwoom Heroes paid the least this season, at around 5 billion won each.

All that money didn’t go to waste for the Landers, with the Incheon club winning both the pennant and the Korean Series this season. En route to the championship, the Landers also became the first team in the history of the KBO to take the regular season title with a wire-to-wire win.

High-paid veterans like Kim Kwang-hyun, Choi Jeong and Choo Shin-soo all proved crucial in that effort.

The Heroes finished in second place, while the LG Twins, who 10.5 billion won last season, took third.

BY JIM BULLEY [[email protected]]