Doosan Bears are struggling with the all-time poor harvest of foreign pitchers. It is a miracle that they are currently in fourth place, but they are in a situation where they are not sure whether the miracle can continue until the end of the season.먹튀검증
As of Tuesday, Doosan is ranked fourth with 65 wins, 65 losses and two draws in this season. As the team is four games apart from the third-ranked LG Twins, it has become difficult for Doosan to recover from the remaining 12 games of the regular season. The problem is the fierce pursuit of teams ranking fifth. With the fifth-ranked KT Wiz having 64 wins, 65 losses and two draws this season, the sixth-ranked SSG Landers (61-67-2 draw) and the seventh-ranked Hanwha Eagles (60-66-2 draw) are chasing each other by three games. Although it is not easy to recover from the third game with the sixth- and seventh-ranked teams, we cannot rest assured that Doosan is currently in a very bad situation.
Doosan invested about 3.85 billion won (8.35 million U.S. dollars) in foreign pitchers alone this year. It promised 1.5 million dollars to Raul Alcantara, who had been selected as a foreign player’s one-two punch when the season opened, and 1.13 million dollars to Brandon Waddell. As Alcantara had 13 wins and Brandon had 11 wins last year, both scored two-point ERA, making it a natural for him to renew his contract.
The problem is that both players have not played a proper season for Doosan this year due to injuries. Alcanta complained of elbow pain and packed his bags with 2 wins and 2 losses, 64 ⅓ innings and an ERA of 4.76 in 12 games. Brandon had good performances with 7 wins, 4 losses, 75 innings and an ERA of 3.12 in 14 games before leaving in June due to a left shoulder scapular injury, but it has become difficult to return within the regular season. Even if Doosan goes to fall baseball, it is difficult to include Brandon as its normal power. Brandon is currently on the field and continues training such as weight training, but he has already stopped pitching for three months. Even if he recovers health, it is difficult to make a normal start right away.
Doosan was forced to spend additional expenses because Alcantara and Brandon struggled. Doosan announced Alcantara on waivers in July and brought power pitcher Jordan Balazovic for a total of $250,000 (about 300 million won). Since coming to Korea, Balazovic’s ball power itself has been evaluated as not bad, but the problem was his ability to play in the inning. Brandon only won two games (four losses) in eight games as quality starts failed to draw innings to the extent that he had only two quality starts in eight games.
Instead of complete replacement, Brandon has used the foreigners’ system, which was newly introduced by the KBO this year. Doosan recruited Keisho Shirakawa, a right-hander from the Japanese independent league who was already playing as a substitute for SSG Landers, and sought to fill Brandon’s vacancy temporarily. He spent 4 million yen on his first six-week contract with Shirakawa, and as Brandon’s return has been delayed, he signed a 15-week extension contract with Shirakawa, which further added 1.4 million yen. However, even Shirakawa failed to take full advantage of the extended contract period as he ended the season due to elbow ligament injury after only 2-3 losses, 34 ⅓ innings and an ERA of 6.03. Doosan pushed for the contract based on the assumption that it would be fortunate if Shirakawa only returned the starting rotation, but it was at a loss as this contract became twisted.
Doosan acquired only 13 wins in 41 games this year, including Alcantara, Brandon, Balazovic and Shirakawa, who had foreign pitchers as starters. As Brandon, who had the most seven wins, failed to return to the regular season, foreign pitchers with 10 wins were wiped out.
The report cards of foreign pitchers are more disastrous than in 2022, when Doosan remained in ninth place, the lowest ranking in the club’s history. That year, Doosan had an ambitious season when it signed Ariel Miranda, the MVP of the 2021 season, for a total of $1.9 million (about 2.5 billion won), and Miranda had to swallow up the disappointment as he took the mound only three games in the aftermath of shoulder pain. Miranda packed seven ⅔ innings without winning or losing, with an 8.22 ERA. Instead, Robert Stock, who was expected to be the second starter, held out full time, and became a support by pitching 9-10, 165 innings, and 3.60 ERA in 29 games, and Brandon, who first joined Doosan as an alternative, recorded 5-3 with 65 innings and an ERA of 3.60.
In 2022, only two players, Stock and Brandon, actually won 14 games, but this year, they are only winning 13 games even after pouring in four players. Foreign pitchers played 33 games in 2022, and foreign pitchers have already played 41 games this year, so this year is much lower even in terms of cost-effectiveness.
Doosan is in a situation where it has to build up wins by trusting only two players, Kwak Bin and Balazovic, for the rest of the season. Choi Won-joon, Kim Min-kyu, and Choi Seung-yong have been continuously used as starting pitchers recently, but the mound calculation continues to be difficult because there are ups and downs or at least five innings cannot be expected. However, he is receiving help from the schedule of playing only six games in two weeks last week and this week, and it is difficult to guarantee how long he will last.
How will Doosan withstand the last five games at a time when the expectation of Brandon has completely disappeared? I wonder if it will be able to use the miracle of advancing to the fall baseball league even after completely failing to farm foreign pitchers.