The MLB has had its fun — now it's the KBO's turn

Baseball

Published: 22 Mar. 2024, 09:00 Updated: 22 Mar. 2024, 09:01

The MLB has had its fun — now it's the KBO's turn

Crowds watch a spring training exhibition game between the NC Dinos and Lotte Giants at Changwon NC Park in Changwon, South Gyeongsang on March 10. [YONHAP]

There’s two big topics of conversation as the KBO returns this weekend — the return of Hanwha Eagles ace Ryu Hyun-jin and the new rules to be implemented this season.

The 2024 KBO season begins Saturday as the reigning champion LG Twins begin their first title defense in 29 years at home against the Eagles. The Twins look in good shape and start their season having performed well in a 5-4 loss to the big league San Diego Padres in an exhibition game on Monday.

Ryu is lined up to start for the Eagles on opening day, bringing 12 years of MLB experience back to the KBO where fans of all 10 teams will be keen to see if the 37-year-old is still a force to be reckoned with.

The ultimate KBO ace, Ryu arrived in the league in 2006 to win Rookie of the Year, MVP and All-Star honors and take the Triple Crown.
He went on to make the All-Star team every year for the following six years, topping the KBO strikeout ranking five times, the ERA ranking twice and earning two Golden Glove awards.

Ryu isn’t the only new arrival this season. The KBO has also newly-implemented the automated ball-strike system (ABS), commonly known as the robot umpire, this season. The ABS uses tracking technology to call balls and strikes and feeds that information to the home place umpire through an earpiece.

The ABS has been used in the big leagues since 2022 and the KBO has copied the Majors in expanding its strike zone — in the KBO’s case, by 2 centimeters on either side — to adapt to the technology.

The KBO has also introduced a pitch clock and banned infield shifts.

The pitch clock, which gives pitchers 18 seconds to pitch with the bases empty and 23 seconds with runners on base, will be trialed in the first half of the season with a decision to be made at the midway point on its continued use. Players will have 30 seconds to resume play between batters.

The infield shift ban means that players cannot pull back or two either side to adapt to batters, so all four infielders must have at least one foot in the infield dirt with two fielders on either side of second base. The size of the bases has also increased from 15 to 18 square inches.

The KBO season will run for the usual 144 games. The playoffs usually begin in October.

LG Twins infielder Oh Ji-hwan [NEWS1]

LG Twins

The LG Twins return to the KBO this year with a title to defend for the first time in 29 years and things look good for the Seoul club going into the new season.

LG lost regular closer Go Woo-suk to the San Diego Padres over the offseason, but the squad otherwise remains largely unchanged. Familiar faces like Oh Ji-hwan, the 2023 Korean Series MVP, and former big leaguer Kim Hyun-soo remain in the squad.

Ace Casey Kelly is back for a seventh season at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in southern Seoul, as is infielder Austin Dean, who hit 23 home runs last year to sit joint third on the table, and new signee Dietrich Enns.

The Twins looked confident in the preseason, finishing in second place on the table with six wins and two losses and even finding time to lose 5-4 to the Padres this week. Oh homered in that game off MLB starter Dylan Cease.

The Twins will start their campaign with a home stand against the Hanwha Eagles, staying at home as they face the Samsung Lions midweek before heading down the road to take on the Kiwoom Heroes.

KT Wiz outfielder Mel Rojas Jr. [YONHAP]

KT Wiz

With four postseason appearances and one title in nine years of history, the KT Wiz return this year looking to ride that momentum to a second straight Korean Series appearance.

The Wiz finished the regular season in second place last year and lost 4-1 to the Twins in the championship series, missing out on a second title after blanking the Doosan Bears 4-0 in 2021.

Wes Benjamin and his reliable 3.23 ERA KBO career ERA returns for a third year with the Wiz, as does Willem Cuevas and his career 3.64 ERA for a sixth year. This year will also see the return of Mel Rojas Jr., who played for the club for four years before leaving as reigning KBO MVP in 2020.

The Wiz have had an up-and-down preseason, taking fifth place on the table with four wins, four losses and a draw. Over those nine games, Rojas led the league in home runs and sits second for RBIs, suggesting its going to be a good year at the plate for the Wiz.

The Suwon club start their season at home against the Samsung Lions, before hosting the Doosan Bears and then heading on the road to face the Hanwha Eagles.

NC Dinos outfielder Matt Davidson [YONHAP]

NC Dinos

With 12 seasons, seven playoff appearances and a title under their belt, the Dinos have definitely shaken the new-kids-on-the-block reputation and established themselves as a regular contender for the KBO title.

That was especially clear last year, when the Dinos rose from the middle of the pack to win the Wildcard and first round of playoffs before taking the KT Wiz all the way to the wire in the second round, with starter Erick Fedde picking up KBO MVP honors along the way.

With Fedde now back in the big leagues, the Dinos have a completely new foreign lineup with pitchers Daniel Castano, who has a career 4.47 ERA in the majors, and Kyle Hart and outfielder Matt Davidson, who has already batted in nine runs during preseason.

Aside from that the Dinos return largely unchanged with a squad that has repeatedly proven reliable in recent years playing out of the nicest ballpark in the league.

The Dinos will start their season at home at Changwon NC Park against the Doosan Bears, hosting the Kiwoom Heroes midweek and then heading down the road to face the Lotte Giants in Busan.

SSG Landers pitcher Kim Kwang-hyun [YONHAP]

SSG Landers

After completely dominating the 2022 KBO season, the SSG Landers started to slip in the middle of the 2023 campaign and ended the season in third place.

The 2024 season offers the club — back with a brand new logo — a chance to redeem itself, although finishing the preseason in ninth place is probably not the start the Landers were looking for.

Slugger Guillermo Heredia, who batted in 96 runs last season, returned on a huge deal, with midseason signee pitcher Roenis Elias also back alongside new arm Robert Dugger.

Former big leaguer Choo Shin-soo, now 41, returns for another year, as does slugger Choi Jeong, the KBOs all-time career runs scored leader. The Landers lost both slugger Choi Joo-hwan and veteran outfielder Kim Kang-min via the KBO’s equivalent of the Rule 5 draft in November.

The Landers will start the campaign at home against the Lotte Giants, hosting the Hanwha Eagles midweek before heading south to take on the Samsung Lions in Daegu.

Doosan Bears pitcher Kim Taek-yeon [JOONGANG ILBO]

Doosan Bears

It’s a well-known rule in baseball that you can’t learn much from the preseason, but in the Bears case, it’s at least worth having a look at.

The Seoul club, who appeared in the Korean Series for a record of seven-straight seasons, only to drop to ninth in 2022, lose their long-term manager and then climb back up to fifth last year are suddenly at the top of the spring training table with eight wins, one draw and perfect 1.000 winning percentage. They even managed to thump the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 9-1, a rare example of a KBO club beating a Japanese team.

None of that guarantees this will be a good season for the Bears, but things do look positive. The Bears held on to infielder Yang Suk-hwan in the free agent market, kept foreign pitchers Raul Alcantara and Brandon Waddell and recruited Henry Ramos, who used to play for the KT Wiz and sat in second for batting average over the preseason.

The Bears start their 2024 campaign on the road in Changwon against the NC Dinos, making it as far north as Suwon to face the Wiz in the midweek, before pulling into Jamsil for a first home stand against the Kia Tigers.

Kia TIgers infielder Hwang Dae-in [JOONGANG ILBO]

Kia Tigers

Firepower seems to be the order of business for the Kia Tigers this year, the Gwangju club throwing up some big offensive numbers in the preseason with infielder Hwang Dae-In, moved up to a leadership role during spring training, leading the league in home runs.

Over the last decade the Tigers have settled into a sort of perennial middle-of-the-tablers role, winning in 2017 and making the playoffs twice since, but typically only missing out by a place or two.

The Tigers are looking to change that this year with a revamped foreign player lineup focusing on big league experience. New starter James Naile arrives in Gwangju having made 10 appearances for the St. Louis Cardinals last year, although his numbers have not been that impressive in the preaseason. Wil Crowe joins from the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he made five appearances last season. Fan-favorite slugger Socrates Brito returns for a fourth season.

The Tigers start their season hosting the NC Dinos and Lotte Giants, before heading on the road to take on the Doosan Bears in southern Seoul.

Lotte Giants pitcher Aaron Wilkerson [YONHAP]

Lotte Giants

Perhaps the most exciting signing of the offseason for the Lotte Giants is new manager Kim Tae-hyoung, the man who led the Doosan Bears through a record-breaking seven-year spell that saw the club appear in the Korean Series seven straight times, win the championship three times and taking the pennant three times as well.

Repeating that success in Busan will be a challenge, with the club only reaching the playoff once in the last 11 years and failing to win the Korean Series since 1992.

The Giants kept Jeon Jun-woo, their only free agent this year, and re-signed pitchers Charlie Barnes and Aaron Wilkerson. New outfielder Victor Reyes joins from the Chicago White Sox organization and recorded a .350 batting average over the preseason. The Giants finished the exhibition games in eighth place on the table with five losses and three wins.

Lotte will start the season at the other end of the country against the SSG Landers in Incheon, before heading south to face the Kia Tigers in Gwangju and finally hosting local rivals the NC Dinos at home at Sajik.

Samsung Lions infielder Oh Jae-il [YONHAP]

Samsung Lions

Samsung Lions fans all know the story: From KBO kings for decades to a single postseason appearance in the last eight years. That’s the backstory, and the Lions look set to spend another year trying to reclaim their former glory.

The Lions arrive at the 2024 campaign after another disappointing season — finishing in seventh place — and a disappointing preseason — tied for sixth.

But the numbers aren’t all bad. Veteran slugger Oh Jae-il — who once hit four home runs in a single playoff game — led the league with 10 hits in the preseason, and new starter Denyi Reyes put up some good numbers and showed good staying power in his two starts.

Reyes leads an entirely new foreign player lineup for the Lions, alongside pitcher Connor Seabold and promising infielder David Mackinnon, who has spent time in the Majors and Japan’s NPB where he recorded a .259 batting average with the Saitama Seibu Lions in 2023.

The Lions start their season on the road in Suwon against the KT Wiz, heading up to Seoul for a midweek series against the LG Twins and then home to host the SSG Landers in Daegu.

Hanwha Eagles pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin [YONHAP]

Hanwha Eagles

This is going to be a big year for the Hanwha Eagles for one reason and one reason only — Ryu Hyun-jin.

Ryu, the former Eagles ace who went on to have a hugely successful big league career, returns this year to finish off his career where it all began — in Daejeon.

Ryu returns to a team that has only made it to the playoffs once in the last 16 years and has finished in the bottom two for the last five years, but the return of the former KBO MVP and Rookie of the Year has lit a spark under the squad and its fans, even selling out their preseason games.

Ryu is not the only thing to get excited about. The Eagles finished spring training in third off some solid team efforts and the club brought back well-known pitchers Felix Pena and Ricardo Sanchez alongside new outfielder Yonathan Perlaza. The Eagles also swiped veteran outfielder Kim Kang-min from the Landers via the KBO’s equivalent of the Rule 5 draft.

The Eagles start their season in Seoul against the reigning champion LG Twins, facing the Landers midweek before heading home to host the KT Wiz.

Kiwoom Heroes infielder Kim Hye-seong [YONHAP]

Kiwoom Heroes

A playoff contender for a decade the Kiwoom Heroes suddenly dropped from third place in 2022 to 10th last year and not much seems to have changed for the west Seoul club going into the new campaign.

The Heroes followed up their .411 winning percentage last season with a .125 winning percentage over the preseason, suggesting there are still some serious issues. A 14-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers probably didn’t help.

The Heroes have lost star outfielder Lee Jung-hoo to the San Francisco Giants and are probably looking at their last season with star infielder Kim Hye-seong, who has his sights set on the big leagues next year. Star pitcher An Woo-jin, the only Korean among the five ERA leaders last season, is out for the next two years while he completes his military service.

The Heroes brought back outfielder Ronnie Dawson and pitcher Ariel Jurado, who struck out Shohei Ohtani twice last week, and signed new arm Enmanuel De Jesus.

The Heroes start their season at the Kia Tigers, before facing the NC Dinos in Changwon and the LG Twins at home.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]