The KIA Tigers of the professional baseball league will use five foreign pitchers a year. This is the true record that came amid the bad news of foreign pitchers’ injuries.
KIA put foreign pitcher James Nail, who suffered a broken jaw after being hit by a pitch on the 28th, on its rehabilitation list, and recruited Eric Stoute as a substitute for the injury. He signed the contract on the condition of an annual salary of 45,000 U.S. dollars for the rest of the season.
Stout, who has played in the Taiwan Professional Baseball (CPBL) for the past two years, signed with KIA after agreeing to a buyout to terminate his contract with his team, the Zhongxin Brothers, on the 27th. KIA moved at the speed of light, bringing Stout four days after Nail suffered an unexpected jaw fracture against Changwon NC on the 24th. He is a foreign player registered after August 15, so he cannot take the postseason.
Kia has only 21 games left in the remaining season. It is comfortably leading second-ranked Samsung by 5.5 games, but remains tight-lipped until the end. Considering fall baseball, it is also important to end the regular season well by reducing the consumption of pitchers in the rest of the season. Stout, who is expected to start about five games during the remaining month, will also be able to provide motivation for Stout to win a full-time contract in the KBO League.
With this result, KIA will have as many as five foreign pitchers a year. It became the third best record in the history of the foreign player system of the KBO League, which was introduced in 1998 and marks its 27th anniversary this year.
KIA started the season with Wil Crowe and Nail. However, Crowe left early May due to right elbow pain and was out for the season due to Tommy John surgery. Then, Kia retained the right to hold on to Crowe and hired left-hander Cam Aldred as a substitute for his injury.
Aldred played in nine games through the end of July, but Kia found a stronger pitcher and completely replaced him with Eric Lauer, a left-hander with 36 wins in the Major League. In the process, he gave up the right to hold on to Crow and completely replaced him with Lauer. I thought I would finish the season with Nail and Lauer, but amid unexpected injury variables, Stout joined Kia as its fifth foreign pitcher.
It is not common for five foreign pitchers to join the same team in a year. However, there was a team worse than KIA in that team. In 2001, 23 years ago, Hanwha used a whopping six foreign pitchers.
Jay Davis, a foreign hitter, played full-time for the Hanwha Eagles, but his two positions constantly changed. He started the season as David Evans and Jose Nunes, but were released early in the season due to poor performance in two and 14 games, respectively. Brian Warren and Darren Winston, who were generally recruited, were also released due to poor performances in 11 games and nine games, respectively. Finally, he brought in substitute foreign pitchers Brandon Leith and Carlos Chavez to wrap up the season.
Except for Leith, Hanwha suffered from the worst foreign pitchers ever due to failures, but thanks to the strong performance of “New In King” Kim Tae-kyun, who appeared like a comet that year, he took the last train of fall baseball in fourth place.
In 2001, the Hanwha Eagles left the team with the largest number of seven foreign players in its history, including batter Davis. As Hanwha changed foreign players so frequently, the KBO introduced a new regulation that limits the number of foreign player replacements to two per team starting the following year. This regulation has been maintained until now.
Since then, five foreign pitchers have joined KT in 2016. In the same year, KT started the season with three foreign pitchers – Travis Banwat, Johan Pinot, and Sugar Ray Marimon along with foreign hitters Andy Marte. As a second-year player in the first division, KT was able to utilize one more foreign player by receiving special benefits from a new team. However, Marimon and Pinot were released during the season after poor performance, and changed to Josh Lowe and Ryan Pierband, respectively, but failed to avoid ranking 10th. 스포츠토토
Until last year, a maximum of five players per team could be used per year and four players per specific position were allowed to be used as temporary workers due to regulations, but with the introduction of the injury replacement foreign player system this year, the number of players who can be used as temporary workers has increased. SSG, Doosan and Hanwha also hired four foreign pitchers this year as they recruited foreign players to replace injury.
Kia has deployed a whopping five foreign pitchers due to two injuries. Kia, which has maintained its No. 1 ranking despite unfavorable factors, is facing a good time to win the title, and is making strenuous investment by moving its feet quickly. It has invested a total of 2.67 million dollars in five foreign pitchers including Crow (1 million dollars), Nail (950,000 dollars), Aldred (325,000 dollars), Lauer (350,000 dollars) and Stout (45,000 dollars). About 3.56 billion won (3.06 million won) will be used in Korean won (approximately 3.56 billion won) if foreign hitter Socrates Brito (1.2 million dollars) is added, Kia has signed a total of six foreign pitchers.