Camden Depot has become one of the go-to destinations to read in-depth discussion and analysis of the Baltimore Orioles. Obviously my view isn't objective, but I don't think anyone would say that's hyperbole. And all of the credit for crafting Camden Depot goes to Jon Shepherd, who founded the site in 2007. In that time, he published more than 700 articles (and plenty of others elsewhere), cultivating the readership into what it is today.
As Jon wrote a few days ago, he's leaving the site to work as a statistical analyst for Baseball Prospectus. So I thought it would be a good idea to provide links to some of his best work, both analyzing Orioles' topics and baseball in general.
The Wieters Shift (May 2008): Jon tackled the topic of Matt Wieters potentially moving from catcher to first base.
What is Nick Markakis Worth? (May 2008): Jon looked at the worth of Nick Markakis and accurately predicted his six-year contract.
GM Family Tree Offseason 2010 (December 2009): Jon constructed a family tree of general managers around the majors. It's not the easiest thing to follow, but it's impressive.
An Interview With Yoo Jee-ho About the Orioles and South Korea (February 2012): Jon talked with Yoo Jee-ho of the Yonhap News Agency about the O's dealings with the Korean Baseball Organization and Korean Baseball Association after the Kim Seong-min controversy.
Receivers in Name Only (May 2014): Jon broke down the superior value of defensive catchers vs. non-defensive catchers.
So congratulate Jon (unless you really don't want to, which is cool) and enjoy looking back at some of his excellent research and analysis.
Last week, I mentioned that when we tend to have a question that needs answering by someone with their feet on the ground in Korea, Yonhap News' Jee-ho Yoo is that person. I was introduced to him when the original Kim Seong-min signing occurred and then blew up in the face of the Orioles' front office. Amazingly, it was Camden Depot that sought out the Korean media before any of the more established news outlets in this area. Instead, they were reporting simply the words coming out of the front office, which was obviously covering themselves. Anyway, good times.
Continuing from last week's chat, I also asked Jee-ho for his thoughts on the aftermath of Kim Seong-min fiasco and the future of the Orioles in Korea.
JS: A couple years have passed since the Orioles were punished for their actions in prematurely signing Kim Seong-min. Is the team still banned from KBA events? Do it appear that the Orioles are still quite active in scouting amateur baseball in Korea?
JY: They are still banned from the KBA-sanctioned events. When the Orioles signed a Korean pitcher (i.e., Yoon Jung-hyun) last July, I was just curious about the ban and asked the KBA about it. I was told that their scouts remained under the ban. Since then, I have spoken to scouts for other big league clubs. They told me they have specifically read signs, "No Baltimore Orioles scouts allowed," or something to that extent at amateur tournaments.
I am not sure if they are even allowed to appeal the ban. But, at the same time, the KBA said last year that it would be "difficult" to enforce the ban anyway. Unless a scout were to show up wearing a Baltimore cap or a polo shirt with the Orioles logo, I do not think KBA officials or whoever will check IDs of every scout in the seats in every game.
When Yoon signed last July, the Baltimore scout who recruited him said the Orioles will keep looking for players in Korea within the boundaries of the rules. I had put that in my article at the time. At this time, though, I am not sure if they are "very active" in watching amateur baseball, but they did sign that kid, who was actually a college dropout in Korea.
JS: Is the Orioles' organization viewed differently than other MLB organizations?
JY: You know how sports fans have short memories? I get the sense that most fans, except for the really hard-core ones, have long forgotten about the whole Kin Seong-min / Orioles situation from almost two years ago. So, I am not sure if people here necessarily have feelings about the Orioles one way or the other. Yes, big baseball fans would still associate the name Orioles with that status check saga, but I think they would be in the minority.
I do not know about "respect" per se, but fans here tend to follow clubs with Korean players for obvious reasons. So the LA Dodgers were hugely popular over here in 2013, thanks to Ryu Hyun-jin, as they had been in the past when Park Chan-ho pitched there. Fans also got a heavy dose of the Cincinnati Reds on television with Choo Shin-soo. Now that Choo has signed with the Texas Rangers, I expect the Rangers to be Korea's favorite American League club in 2014 and beyond.
This probably has nothing to do with respect fans have but you would see a lot of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees paraphernalia around these parts, caps, shirts, hoodies, bag packs, what have you.
JS: Kim Seong-min is now in Japan playing baseball. Have there been any updates on him? Is he still viewed as a greedy player in Korea or has that view changed?
JY: There has not been much on Kim. He is apparently still pitching for a Japanese college.
Poor kid. He was still a teenager when all that circus happened. As far as the view on him now, I think it is the same situation with the Orioles. People have mostly forgotten about the young man and they probably do not really care one way or another. The last time any paper wrote about him was almost a year ago.
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As always, good stuff from Jee-ho. Here at the Depot, we will continue following the Orioles' efforts in Korea and will keep an eye out for Kim Seong-min in the news. It is still an amazing story that every Orioles' fan should be well-versed in. Orioles scout a guy and send a positively glowing report home, team signs him for 575k, other teams confused by reported scouting report of High Schooler who was not considered a top draft pick in KBO, deal breaks down as Orioles did not follow well-known signing process and banned from contacting Seong-min for a month or two, KBA bans Orioles from events, team flies Seong-min to USA to scout and finds a player completely different from the international scout's report, Orioles do not sign him and KBA bans Seong-min, and then Seong-min goes to college in Japan to pitch. In other words, the team was inept and severely messed up a player's life. Hopefully, the college dropout signing will go better for the team.
Whenever we have thoughts or questions about Korean baseball, we like to go to someone who knows the situation intimately. That person for Camden Depot is Yonhap News' Jee-ho Yoo. For anyone who is an Orioles fan or someone who in interested in sports in Korea, he is a must follow on Twitter.
Anyway, Jee-ho and I discussed Yoon and Korean free agents in general:
JS: How does Suk-min Yoon compare to other pitchers in the Korean Baseball Organization? Can you compare him to international pitchers in Korea who has had experienced in Major League Baseball?
JY: Yoon was not close to being the best pitcher in the KBO in 2013. In fact, he was not even the best pitcher on his own team, the Kia Tigers. He had some shoulder issues that had carried over from 2012 and had a slow start in 2013. He bounced between the rotation and the pen, ending up with only 87.2 innings pitched, the second-lower total of his career. Some players have career years in their "contract season" or in the season right before becoming a free agent, but Yoon picked the worst possible time to have perhaps his worst season as a KBO pro.
There are international pitchers here with varying amounts of big league experience. With some exceptions, most of those guys are No. 1 or No. 2 starters on their clubs (exceptions being closers or relievers). Take, for example, Dustin Nippert of the Doosan Bears. He has won 38 games in three seasons here and will be back for his fourth. He has a 3.05 ERA with 380 strikeouts in 499 innings. He was slowed somewhat by injuries last year and still went 12-4 with 104 Ks in 118 IP. He has been one of the most consistent pitcher, foreign or otherwise, in the KBO in the past three years. Before coming over here, he had been with the Texas Rangers and was on their postseason roster during their run to the World Series in 2010, pitching in one ALDS game against the Rays.
How does Yoon stack up against someone like Nippert? Just comparing their 2011-2013 stretch, Yoon did win the MVP after claiming the pitching triple crown in 2011, but struggled the following seasons. Nippert has been the steadier of the two. Yoon enjoyed that spectacular 2011 season (17-5, 2.45 ERA, 178 Ks in 172.1 IP, 44 BB, 3 SH), but in terms of consistency in the season since, I would not say he has been better than Nippert or other international pitchers.
JS: How involved were MLB teams in scouting Yoon before his free agency? Why do you think it has taken this long for him to sign a contract?
JY: He had been drawing some scouts, I think, but more of them attended his games in 2013 than in previous years, perhaps. It was probably difficult for scouts because he was mostly pitching out of the pen and you just did not know when he would take the mound. I think some teams still may have reservations about Yoon's shoulder issues, though I am sure Scott Boras and company are trying to defuse such concerns. Also, his peripheral numbers from his most recent season do not really stand out even though I understand scouts will look at more than just stats. Just by looking at his numbers (strikeout ratio, walk rate, home runs allowed, etc.), you could even argue he has been in decline since winning the 2011 MVP. Having said that, I know some teams will look past those stats. I feel that he has the physical tools to succeed in the big leagues, if given a fair chance.
Yoon has also been adamant that he wants to be a starter, which may or may not have thrown off some teams who were considering him as a reliever.
JS: How was Hyun-jin Ryu's departure to MLB viewed in Korea? Is the country happy to see their players perform in MLB or do they wish they play in their home country? Do they look at Yoon the same way they looked at Ryu?
JY: With Ryu, I think people were generally happy to see the guy do well. He has been a big source of pride for KBO fans because he served to validate the quality of this league. He is the first Korean player to jump from the KBO to MLB and had, by most accounts, a pretty successful rookie season there. It would not be an exaggeration to say Ryu single-handedly helped change the perception of the KBO. He has been the best pitcher here for seven seasons and went out there to win 14 games plus another in the NLCS in his first year. Yes, one player constitutes an extremely small sample size, but I think Ryu proved that the best in the KBO can still make it in the majors.
I think fans would be more than happy to see more KBO guys go play in the big leagues because those players have mostly paid their dues here. Players must put in the equivalent of seven full seasons to be eligible for posting and nine full seasons to become free agents. (After eight seasons, they need their team's approval to sign with a foreign team. After nine, they are complete free agents, like Suk-min Yoon.) With high school or college players, it is probably different. KBO clubs, first of all, would like to see local kids play for them at least for a few years. Fans would also want them to play for their home teams first.
But, if there is another KBO player who can make the successful transition to MLB, then fans here will be pretty excited. Yoon is no exception. He has put in nine years for the Kia Tigers. He has started, closed, and pitched in middle relief. They won the 2009 Korean Series, but they had some terrible seasons, too. He won the MVP after going 17-5, but there was also one season when he was 7-18 while still managing to keep his ERA under 4.00. Yoon is probably the oly KBO pitcher to have led the league in wins and in losses in two different seasons in his career. In other words, you want to talk about a guy who has paid his dues? Yoon is that guy.
So if/when Yoon signs, people here will be rooting for him to succeed much as they did for Ryu last year. They will hope that Yoon will further help change the perception or improve the image of the KBO.
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Video of Yoon:
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Next week, Jee-ho will tell us a bit about what he knows about the Orioles' efforts in Korea.
If you are a fan of this site, then you probably know quite a bit about Kim Seong-min and the incident that the Orioles caused last season. Briefly put, Kim Seong-min was the big splash in the international scene that many fans craved and people outside the organization were calling for.
However, it was a signing that confused many people like Keith Law who was told by his sources that the prospect in question did not match the Orioles description that they were feeding the local media. Next, it was determined that in the Orioles haste at signing him, they violated agreements that were in place with Major League Baseball which resulted in the Orioles being banned from amateur events in the country, Kim Seong-min being banned from all amateur play, and the 500k deal to be nullified with negotiations suspended for several weeks. Additional looks seemed to prove the field correct and after the Orioles could restart negotiations, they brought him in and found him not to be the pitcher that was described to them from their scout. This left Kim Seong-min out to dry.
Recently, I used Google translate to read this article. However, much can be lost in translation, so I asked a friend of the Depot, Yoo Jee-ho, to provide a proper summary.
Kim is accepting a full baseball scholarship at Fukuoka University of Economics in Japan. The reporter met Kim on January 6, four days before he was to leave to join the school's training camp.
Kim is still under the indefinite suspension by the Korea Baseball Association (KBA) for his contract situation with the Orioles. At
first, he wanted to get his mandatory military service out of the way
and join the South Korean military team, called Sangmu, (which, by the
way, plays in the Futures League, a Korean equivalent of the minor
league), but he was rejected because of that suspension.
Kim also said he thought about quitting baseball
entirely but his father encouraged him to stay patient and wait for an
opportunity to come. Now, Kim said he's extra motivated to prove to
people what a great player he is. He also said he'd like to return to
Korea and play ball here in the future. His dream is to represent Korea
internationally.
To my knowledge, the Orioles' scouts are still banned from viewing KBA sanctioned events (they are permitted to scout KBO events or non-sanctioned events, including training). Also to my knowledge, the Orioles have yet to sign any free agents from Korea this past off season, but I cannot verify that.
Lots of things happen behind closed doors. As writers and fans, we try to piece together what is available for us to know about a situation and do our best to extrapolate reasonable actions and explanations where we do not know what occurred. This extrapolation is difficult because most of us have never been in positions where these things occur. We often do our best to understand what has transpired, but it is difficult when we are so outside of the actual profession and actual series of events. This paragraph serves as a disclaimer that we all should carry with us when we assess the actions of a professional where we are so distant.
With that in mind, I want to discuss Kim Seong-min, the Orioles' attempt to sign him, and the resulting aftermath. Last January, I wrote a couple articles on the fiasco that transpired. Basically, the Orioles made a big splash by signing a Korean high schooler to a 550k signing bonus (which would roughly account for the half of the cost of annual signing bonuses in total for international amateur talent acquisition in years past). It was a major move for a franchise that has stood by and watched others signing international talent for about a decade and a half. Industry was relatively shocked by the move because no other MLB team had shown any interest in Kim Seong-min. The Orioles reported rather rosey projections and suggested that he was bound to grow 3-4 inches as he matured. Meanwhile, unnamed sources in the international scouting press suggested Seong-min was a non-prospect and that the signing bonus was a gross overpay.
Further complicating the perception of this move was that the Orioles did not consult the amateur baseball organization in South Korea, the KBA, before signing Kim Seong-min. This violated the agreement that MLB had in place. As a result of this violation, the Orioles were banned from scouting in KBA sanctioned events and MLB voided the contract. Kim Seong-min was not allowed to have any contact with the Orioles for a few weeks and was banned from playing baseball in South Korea. After Seong-min was allowed to come to the United States and communicate with the Orioles, he threw a session in Florida for a collection of evaluators. The Orioles decided at that point to ship him back across the Pacific and elect not to sign him. At the time of my writing, Seong-min is still banned from playing baseball in South Korea.
[Side Note - Essential reading on this topic also comes from Jon Bernhardt from a twopart piece he wrote over at the Classical. He is an excellent writer. Follow him on twitter if you desire some discussion on baseball and a whole lot of peculiar retweets from all hours in the early early morning.]
Last week, Steve Melewski published an interview he had with Dan Duquette. Go and read the whole interview, but there was one startling comment:
Steve: You mentioned a few minutes ago that one of the new markets the Orioles are in is Korea. Weren't the Orioles banned from scouting Korea?
Duquette: "I didn't hear that. How are they enforcing that? I don't know."
Ladies and Gentlemen, that is the Dan Duquette all of New England came to know so well. His somewhat heavy-handed, smartest-guy-in-the-room can come across a bit too strong at times. I am not exactly sure what to make of the statement above. The first sentence is obviously him being sarcastic and the second one...I am unsure. I do not know what to make of it. Maybe he literally took Melewski about being banned from Korea.
The Orioles have not been banned from scouting in Korea. If you remember, I have on a few occaissions taken Melewski to task for incorrectly writing this. It is a ridiculous statement. The Orioles are still free to attend non-KBA sanctioned events and hold their own tryouts. So...maybe Duquette was responding to that. I don't know. I do know that it does not come off like that. It comes off as him allegedly thumbing his nose at the KBA and, to some extent, MLB. I hope, for his sake, it is about the annoyance of a question and not an outright declaration of ignoring a foreign amateur player ruling body.
To get a better handle on what has transpired since those initial interviews, I followed up with Yoo Jee-ho from the Yonhap News Agency. As you remember from last winter, he was an excellent resource in finding out what was happening in South Korea and helped Camden Depot get the first story out with solid information. Make sure you follow his twitter account if you have interest in Korean Sports. If you have a question, my experience has been that he knows the answer.
Jon Shepherd: Has Baltimore's actions affected how MLB teams in general are perceived in Korea? Or is it only Baltimore's reputation that has been tarnished?
Yoo Jee-ho:I am not sure Baltimore’s mishaps
really affected MLB’s perception here much. People here still love their
baseball, love watching Shin-Soo Choo of the Cleveland Indians whack extra-base
hits, etc, etc. If anything, I think the Orioles’ image may have been
tarnished, as you point out.
JS: What has been the reaction to Dan Duquette's interview with Steve Melewski?
YJ:I did read the interview. A
Korean online paper carried that story as well. And readers’ reaction has
ranged from anger (‘These guys are so arrogant!’) to almost bemusement (‘Hey,
maybe that Duquette guy really doesn’t know.’). Others have questioned whether
the Korea Baseball Association (KBA) can actually reinforce that ban. Are you
going to check every foreign person’s ID at the gate? Should they ask anyone
with a speed gun in seats behind the home plate to present their ID, or
whatever proof that they may have showing they’re a major league scout? Now
that I think of it, a few months after the ban was announced, it may have been
put in place just for show. It may have been the KBA’s way of telling the
angry/frustrated Korean public that, look, we’re doing something here.
JS: The Orioles had Kim Seong-min in Florida for a tryout and decided not to sign him. What was your take on the reaction in South Korea?
YJ:Again, a wide range of reactions from the public. A lot of people obviously
aren’t happy with the way Baltimore handled this. They say the Orioles
essentially ruined the career of a teenage ballplayer (he’s still under that
indefinite suspension for signing a pro contract as an underclass man) by
violating the rule. On the other hand, a surprisingly large number of people also
blame Kim for not having been more careful before signing (or at least attempting
to sign) with the Orioles and for apparently being too greedy at that age. Kim’s
parents have also taken some shots in cyberspace--after all, the kid is still in
his teens.
JS: What is Kim Seong-min currently doing?
YJ:He’s reportedly attending the same high school but is not playing ball at the
moment. There’s been absolutely no indication when he will be able to play
baseball again.
JS: What is the most important thing for Americans to understand about this situation?
YJ: A great
number of Korean ball fans still throw around the term “exodus” when discussing
MLB clubs’ signing of local players. Granted, there haven’t been that many
players who signed in the last year or two, compared to, say, around 2007 and
2008. Fans here can be really protective of their homegrown talent. They want
to see homegrown kids play for their hometown teams in the KBO, before they go
overseas (if at all). KBO clubs can also be like that?wanting to sign local
kids out of high school rather than losing them to MLB or Japanese clubs. That’s
why the KBO has that rule in place where a player can only sign with a foreign
team after playing seven seasons or their equivalent. Korean fans tend to have
sort of an inferiority complex, compared to bigger baseball countries like the
U.S. and Japan. ‘Those two countries have way more high school and college
teams than we do, and they’ve obviously got bigger talent pools. But they want
to take away our guys?' Those fans don’t see the other side of the equation--that
seeing local guys do well overseas can be just as exciting from a fan’s
perspective.
To me, it is a fascinating topic. A solid conduit of information on Korean Baseball is Dan from the Korean Baseball Fansite MyKBO.net about their thoughts on the whole situation. Dan actually grew up in Lancaster, PA and is sensitive to the Orioles plight.
JS: What is your opinion on how the Orioles have handled this situation?
Dan: The Orioles botched it completely by not status checking on Kim. Had they waited until he began his final year and completed the status check with KBA, they could have signed him. From my understanding at the time, and more obvious now, no other MLB club was interested in signing him.
JS: What do you think about how the team has handled Kim Seong-min?
D: The
Orioles probably feel that they do not owe Kim anything because MLB
voided the contract. It helped them get out of their mistake in signing
him and saved the team money. From an ethics and public relations
perspective, the team should probably offer some degree of
reconcilliation for Kim and his family. For instance, they could go to
KBO and KBA, declare the mistakes was their own and not Kim's, and ask
for Kim's KBO and KBA ban to be lifted.
From
what I have seen on the internet, there are some Orioles fans who think
that Kim bears some responsibility. That is correct, unless he was led
to believer that the Orioles did everything by the book. There's been
speculation in Korea that Kim's family was allegedly told that the
Orioles performed the check and did everything by the book.
Underclassmen rarely get signed in Korea, so Kim's family had no idea if
what they were allegedly being told was accurate. Kim likely did not
have an agent providing advice who could have checked on this.
JS: You have read the Melewski interview with Duquette. Any thoughts?
D: While
Duquette may have a dry sense of humor, that does not translate well in
Korean. Basically saying that he has scouts there and questioning how
KBA could enforce such a ban is only going to further upset KBA and,
thus, possibly keeping the ban on the team for a longer period.
Additionally, it may hurt Kim's chance at getting his own ban lifted.
Honor and respect have a huge role in Korea. The general sentiment is
that the Orioles dishonored KBO/KBA by not status checking. An
honorable apology may not lift the ban, but it would help ease
tensions. There is talent in Korea and I see no benefit in upsetting
the organizations that oversee baseball in the country.
JS: Do you have any lingering questions about the Orioles' effort in Korea?
D: An
interesting person who has been a part of the Orioles effort has been
Eun-chul Choi. He is an older player, has barely had a cup of coffee in
independent ball, and has been on the DL all year. I wonder if he
could be serving the Orioles as a player/scout. I've heard that the
Orioles used word of mouth and video to scout Kim and I wonder if Choi
had input on the signing.
I am unsure whether or not the story of Kim Seong-min and the Orioles is over. Certainly, he will not be in the organization, but he will likely have a presence as this situation has impacted how the Orioles operate. Those changes will likely be clearer in the future.
What strikes me here though is this:
The Orioles did not follow well known rules on status checking.
The Orioles signed a player no one else apparently wanted for 550k.
The Orioles are prohibited from attending KBA sanctioned events.
After being forced to null the original contract, the Orioles cross referenced their scouting and decided Kim Seong-min was not someone they wanted to sign.
From the outside, it just does not seem that this is how a team should operate. The Orioles new desire to hit the international market is a great thing and it has been long needed as so many MLB players are found outside of this country. However, this event and their recent absence of signing international talent well regarded by industry provides some doubt as to how effective they will be at implementing these changes. It should be noted that the late start date for Duquette may have severely hampered scouting as many scouts had already signed on to new clubs, limiting what he had to choose to fill his organization.
If you have been following the Orioles' signing Kim Seong-Min and that signings' aftermath, you know the name of Yoo Jee-ho. He has been reporting for Yonhap News Agency on how the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), the governing body of two professional leagues in South Korea, and the Korean Baseball Association, the governing body of amateur baseball in South Korea, have reacted to the Orioles not abiding to the agreement in place for MLB teams to sign amateur talent.
Jon Shepherd:How much of a presence does Major League
Baseball have in South Korea?
Yoo Jee-ho:A few teams have been sending scouts to
Korean high school and college (or university as we’d like to call it here)
tournaments in recent years. Some are based in Korea or others may be stationed
somewhere in Asia and travel here for some big tournaments. More young players
have signed with big league clubs in the last two, three years than in the past
(almost a dozen since 2009).
As far as helping KBO developing baseball
programs, I am not aware of any MLB involvement in that regard. I personally
don’t see it as something MLB absolutely has to do here. But critics of MLB
teams’ signing young Korean prospects may feel differently.
JS:Are certain teams viewed more favorably than others by players and families?
YJ:I am not sure if any one particular
team is more favored than others by players and parents. But I’d imagine it’s
probably the same with kids in other countries dreaming of playing in the
majors. They would all want to play for the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, or other storied
ball clubs. Would young players take less money to play for, say, the Yankees,
rather than for the Pirates? I doubt it, and it’s not just the money. I think
these players will take any opportunity that they can get to join a major
league team and have a chance to play in the big leagues someday.
JS:Can you briefly explain what has transpired between KBO, KBA, and the
Baltimore Orioles?
YJ: It really is a long story and I will
try to make it short.
The Orioles signed Kim Seong-min to a minor league deal
in January. The KBO, which runs the top baseball league here, claimed that the
O’s didn’t go through the “status check” as detailed under the KBO-MLB player
contract agreement. An MLB team interested in a Korean amateur or pro must,
through MLB commissioner’s office, “check” that player’s status and
availability with the KBO.
If I may digress a bit and delve a little
deeper into this, MLB teams, following the status check, must receive KBO’s
approval to sign an active professional player here. But they can sign amateur
players as long as they go through the status check. And even KBO officials say
status checks are just a formality. With pros, KBO can say, “Nope, you can’t
talk to this guy because he’s under contract and his current team doesn’t want
to let him go.” But with amateurs, the most KBO can tell an interested MLB club
is, “He will be eligible for the KBO draft next year. We hope you don’t engage this
player.” But that doesn’t prevent the MLB team from signing him. Against this backdrop, the KBO now wants to
tweak the agreement to ban MLB clubs from signing amateur players at all.
Back to the situation. The KBA, which is
the local baseball governing body, has suspended Kim indefinitely from playing
or coaching in Korea, and that was in accordance with a local rule. Underclassmen
(student-athletes not currently in the final year of their study, at high
school or college) must not contact domestic or foreign professional teams. In
Korea, a new school year starts in March. Kim was just about to enter his
senior year in high school.
The KBA also banned Orioles’ scouts from
attending KBA-sanctioned games, such as national high school and college tournaments.
It has also warned that other MLB teams that fail to take proper steps in their
dealing with prospects will have their scouts banned from Korean games.
I think this will definitely affect MLB’s relationship
with KBO and with Korea as a whole. Other teams must have taken notice of this
development. KBO and KBA obviously have their own interests, but I think they
have taken steps that will likely be seen as being too restrictive.
JS:In your opinion, what changes to the existing agreement between KBO and MLB
would be best for the development of baseball as a professional sport in South
Korea?
YJ:I don’t think banning MLB teams from
signing Korean amateurs is the answer. MLB wouldn’t agree to this sort of
change anyway.
Here’s the one change that I think may
work. When a player is drafted by a KBO team out
of high school, the player has a one-month window to choose between going to
college or signing with the KBO team. In my opinion, you can allow MLB teams to
engage and possibly sign such players after that one-month period ends. Tampering
will have to be prohibited, of course. KBO teams will reserve the priority to
negotiate and sign such players. So MLB teams will be looking at either a KBO
rookie or a college freshman to sign.
It’d be easy for big league clubs to lure
top talent by coming in with loads of cash, right? Not so fast. Not every
teenage player will want to go overseas to play for different reasons (fear of
culture shock, language problems, simply wanting to stay home close to family,
etc). Plus, top young guns get six figures in signing bonus from KBO teams and MLB
teams may or may not want to match that to take them. In other words, if the money is right and
they’d rather stay home, more Korean players than you’d think will choose to
stay with the KBO.
This bit of change will mean a limited
window for MLB teams to sign. But I think it will work both ways because a)
young players, having already been drafted, will have a KBO team to fall back
on if talks with MLB teams don’t go well and b) MLB teams will have a better
idea of how much they want to pay players given their draft position (i.e.
Should we pay this kid $500,000 when he was only drafted 10th overall
in Korea? Should we spend that money on some other prospect from elsewhere?)
JS:There has been some debate in the United
States as to how good of a player Kim Seong-Min is. Do you have any information on his abilities?
YJ:He had an excellent 2011. Kim pitched 74 2/3 innings in 21 games, won eight
games, and posted an ERA of 1.39. In August, at a national high school
tournament, Kim went 3-0 with a zero ERA and 19 Ks in 22 innings to win the
MVP.
Kim was considered the top lefty in high
schools over here and since he had another high school season ahead of him
(before the Baltimore deal), local scouts felt that Kim could improve even more
and eventually become a first-round draft choice in the KBO. His fastball tops out at about 89-90 miles
per hour, and he also throws above-average changeup and curve. Obviously not
overpowering, but he’s got decent command. Any left-hander with his upside and
stuff is a valued commodity here, but I myself was surprised to see him
snatched up by a major league team. Maybe the O’s scouts saw something in him.
JS:Will this incident affect the Orioles
ability to sign premier players from South Korea?
YJ:For the foreseeable future, absolutely.
(Poor Dan Duquette. The guy loves Korean players.) Their scouts are banned from
going to Korean games and that will obviously limit their ability to assess
talent here. Duquette has apologized for “unintentional breach of protocol” but
I don’t think the KBO is that much interested in apologies. Rather, the KBO
wants to change the agreement to at least limit the outflow of young talent
from here. In a way, the O’s move may affect all MLB teams’ ability to scout
and sign premier young talent in Korea.
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To stay on top of the Kim Seung-min situation and Korean baseball in general, follow Yoo Jee-ho on twitter and at Yonhap News.
