Local reports said Ko Woo-suk (25, LG Twins), who has less than 24 hours left before the posting deadline, is close to signing a contract with the San Diego Padres.
John Hayman, columnist for the New York Post, said on his SNS on the 3rd (Korea Standard Time), “The contract between South Korea’s right-handed pitcher Ko Woo-suk and the San Diego Padres is imminent. San Diego is expected to use Ko as the closing pitcher.”마카오카지노주소
Ko Woo-seok, who was first selected by LG in the 2017 Rookie Draft, completed seven seasons to advance overseas through the posting system at the end of the 2023 season and delivered his long-cherished dream of challenging the Major League to the LG club.
Upon confirming Ko’s intention to go overseas, the LG Twins suddenly accepted Ko’s challenge to the Major League on Nov. 21 last year. “I asked Ko to give it a try. We need to see how much interest the Major League has,” LG’s general manager Cha Myung-seok said. “In the past, Kim Jae-hwan (Doosan) tried it, but gave up because the conditions he didn’t want didn’t come out.” “I asked him to give it a try and talk to the club when he was satisfied with the amount.”
Ko Woo-suk has been LG’s built-in closer since 2019. He has a career-high 354 games in seven seasons with 19 wins, 26 losses, 139 saves, and six holds ERA of 3.18, becoming the league’s best closer with a 1.48 ERA and 42 saves in 2022.
Last year, he had only 3 wins, 8 losses, 15 saves, and a 3.68 ERA in 44 games due to minor injuries, including neck and shoulder injuries at the WBC (World Baseball Classic) in March. Although he was sluggish in four games with one win, one loss, and one save with an 8.31 ERA, he won his first career championship ring by contributing to the team’s unified victory in 29 years since 1994.
Initially, the team that was most connected to Ko Woo-suk was the St. Louis Cardinals, a member of the National League Central. With the opening of the Stove League, St. Louis made reinforcement of the bullpen a top priority and planned to recruit two middlemen. There are quite a few good back gatekeepers, including Closer Ryan Helmsley, Jozo Romero, and Giovanni Gallegos, but the thin depth made it urgent to recruit new faces, and turned to the international free agent market such as Matsui and Ko Woo-suk to recruit them.
However, the most likely destination for Ko was San Diego in the National League West, where Kim Ha-sung belongs, not St. Louis. It is interpreted that San Diego recruited Japanese bullpen pitcher Yuki Matsui for a total of 28 million U.S. dollars for five years on April 24, and even sought a contract with Ko.
If Ko Woo-seok heads to San Diego, he will share a room with Kim Ha-sung, who won the first gold glove award last year. He can also make his debut against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Major League Seoul Series at Gocheok Sky Dome on March 20 and 21. Attention is also focusing on the same district showdown with Lee Jung-hoo, the “brother-in-law” who signed a six-year, $113 million contract with the San Francisco Giants last month. The western district is expected to become a solo stage for Asian players in the 2024 season, adding not only them but also Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.