Ko Woo-suk, who is challenging the Major League through posting, seems to be gradually increasing his chances of advancing to the big leagues. An LG official said, “I think Ko Woo-suk will go to the Major League.”
After LG won the Korean Series, Ko Woo-seok was asked to check his identity by the Major League Secretariat. Ko Woo-seok, who will be eligible for FA if he plays until next year, had a plan to enter the Major League in the future, and he was able to take the opportunity to challenge the big league by posting when the request for a status check by the Major League Secretariat was received.
Ko asked the LG team to allow him to post, and LG allowed him to post. “I will play in the Major League if I get paid a certain amount of ransom,” Ko said. 에볼루션 바카라사이트
The club where Ko Woo-suk is strongly connected is the St. Louis Cardinals. It is a club familiar to Korean fans as Oh Seung-hwan and Kim Kwang-hyun played in the past, and St. Louis has a preference for Korean pitchers.
St. Louis plans to beef up at least two bullpen pitchers. St. Louis Cardinals closing pitcher Ryan Hellsley (29). He had nine wins, one loss and 19 saves with a 1.25 ERA in 54 games last year, and had three wins, four losses and two holds with 14 saves with a 2.45 ERA in 33 games this year.
St. Louis is interested in Phil Maiton, 30, an FA bullpen pitcher. Maiton has four wins and three losses with an ERA of 3.00 in 68 games (66 innings) with the Houston Astros this year. Jordan Hicks, who played for the St. Louis Cardinals this season and became an FA after moving to the Toronto Blue Jays in a trade in July, is also mentioned as a candidate.
Derrick Gould, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said during the winter meeting, “Go is a relief pitcher discussed with Yuki Matsui in the international FA market. St. Louis met with the agents of Ko and Japanese pitcher Yuki Matsui.”
The U.S. media reported, “The LG Twins disclosed Go Woo-suk to MLB teams through the posting system. The 25-year-old right-hander Go Woo-suk posted a 3.68 ERA over 44 innings last season. While his strikeout rate was as good as 31.1 percent, his walk rate was as high as 11.8 percent.”
“Go has until January 3 next year to decide whether he will sign with a Major League club or remain in Korea. Go is not expected to sign a contract at the same level as Maiton or Matsui. And it will certainly be less than the cost of bringing back Hicks,” he predicted.
Matsui is Japan’s leading closing pitcher who recorded an ERA of one point over the past three years. He recorded two wins, three losses and 39 saves with an ERA of 1.57 in 59 games (57 ⅓ innings) this season. He became the relief pitcher three times in 501 games (659 ⅔ innings) with 25 wins, 46 losses and 76 holds with 236 saves with an ERA of 2.40.
Major League bullpen pitchers have signed several contracts so far. Right-hander Luis Garcia made a one-year, 4.25 million-dollar contract with the Los Angeles Angels. Garcia Garcia pitched in 61 games (59.2 innings) for the San Diego Padres this year, posting 2-3 losses and 4.07 ERA with 10 holds.
Veteran Kirby Yates signed a one-year, 4.5-million-dollar contract with the Texas Rangers. After more than a year off due to elbow surgery in 2021, Yates posted a 5.14 ERA in nine games last year, and made a comeback this year when he pitched in 61 games (60 ⅓ innings) in Atlanta with seven wins, two losses, five saves and nine holds of 3.28 ERA.
Right-hander Adam Chimber, who played for Toronto this year, had two losses and an ERA of 7.40 in 22 games (20.2 innings). Recently, Chimber signed a one-year, 1.65 million-dollar contract with the Los Angeles Angels. In 2020, Kim Kwang-hyun signed a two-year, eight-million-dollar contract with the St. Louis Cardinals last year. Oh Seung-hwan, who entered the Major League after making remarkable strides in the Japanese pro baseball league, signed a two-year, 11-million-dollar contract in 2016.
If Ko is offered a contract worth an average of 3 million dollars, chances are high that he will leave for the Major League. Cha Myung-seok, head of LG, expects Ko to advance to the big league with that amount.