Live sports became a little easier to watch on Monday, as ESPN announced that it will broadcast games from the Korea Baseball Organization, which starts its season around 1 a.m. EST on Tuesday.
The KBO is a 10-team league that has been around since 1982. It has grown in popularity over recent years and has several former members who have gone on to experience success in Major League Baseball.
Not only natives such as Hyun-Jin Ryu, Byung-Hyun Kim and Chan Ho Park, but also Americans such as Eric Thames, Merrill Kelly and Josh Lindblom, the 2019 KBO MVP who spent part of 2017 with the Pirates.
If you’re interested in sampling the KBO, here’s some of what you should know.
The basics
The KBO schedule is fairly straightforward. Its 10 teams play their nine opponents 16 times, creating a 144-game schedule. Ties are actually OK — after 12 innings during the regular season and 15 in the postseason (treated as a loss for the lower-seeded team).
Five teams make the playoffs. The regular season winner advances straight to the Korean Series, while the No. 5 seed plays No. 4 in a wild card series, the fourth-seeded team starting with a 1-0 lead.
The winner plays the No. 3 seed in another best-of-three series (shortened from five games because of COVID-19) before that winner has a five-gamer against the No. 2 seed. The Korean Series is a best-of-seven.
There are three foreign players allowed per team, and for the first time this season, all three can be active in the same game.
Instead of home cities, nine of the 10 teams are owned by corporations — the Samsung Lions or LG Twins, for example. Three of the 10 are based in Seoul, South Korea.
The KBO has once again become more of a pitcher-friendly league. After introducing a “de-juiced” ball last season, the league batting average fell from .286 in 2018 to .267 in 2019. Pitchers’ ERAs, meanwhile, dropped from 5.17 to 4.17.
All KBO clubs use the designated hitter as well.
There’s a 13-hour time difference between Pittsburgh and South Korea, which will make for some interesting watch times in the United States; games on ESPN’s platform of networks during the first week will appear at 1, 4 and 5:30 a.m. Mondays are universal off days in the KBO.
Top teams
The Doosan Bears are the defending champs, having won their third title in the past five years. They finished as runners-up the other two years. The Bears’ 22 postseason appearances rank second among KBO franchises, trailing only the Samsung Lions.
The Kia Tigers have won a league-high 11 titles, though only one (2017) has come since 2010. The Lions are second with eight, the Bears third with six.
The newer teams are the KT Wiz (2015), NC Dinos (2013) and Kiwoom Heroes (2008), while the core teams are the Bears, Tigers, LG Twins, Lotte Giants and Lions.
Players/storylines
The best pitcher in the KBO is likely left-hander Hyeon-jong Yang from the Tigers. Yang in 2019 had a 2.29 ERA with 163 strikeouts in 184⅔ innings pitched.
Dinos catcher Eui-ji Yang might be the best position player in the KBO. He hit 20 home runs in 2019, had more walks (48) than strikeouts (43) and produced a .354/.438/.574 slash line. Two years ago, the Dinos signed him to the second-largest contract in KBO history — four years and more than $11 million.
The Heroes are the only team not owned by a corporation. They’re sponsored by the Kiwoom Group, and they’re from where former Pirate Jung Ho Kang came. They’ve been compared to the Oakland A’s — a smaller-budget team known for having a smart and strong front office.
There are several players worth watching on the Heroes. One is first baseman ByungHo Park, who played for the Minnesota Twins in 2016 and has 76 homers over the past two KBO seasons. Another is shortstop Ha-seong Kim, a 24-year-old who will likely be posted to MLB clubs after the season. Kim slashed .307/.389/.491 with 19 homers, 104 RBIs and 33 steals in 37 attempts last season.
One of the Twins’ foreign players is a Mexican-born first baseman named Roberto Ramos. You’ve probably never heard of him, but he totaled 62 home runs the past two seasons in the Rockies system. There’s some hope that he could turn out a lot like Thames, who used the KBO to restart his MLB career.
Former Pirates pitcher Nick Kingham will start on opening day for the SK Wyverns. While most American-born pitchers went home when the KBO was paused due to COVID-19, Kingham and his wife, Logan, stayed, allowing him to stay on schedule.
Jae-hwan Kim is an outfielder for the Doosan Bears who was posted last offseason but didn't draw enough interest and ultimately returned to his KBO club. From 2016-18, Kim averaged 39 home runs and 124 RBIs.
Someone to watch on the Wiz is outfielder Baek-ho Kang, who's just 20 yet entering his third KBO season. Kang has a really strong arm and hit .336 with a .911 OPS this past season.
In addition to Yang, another terrific lefty is Chang-mo Koo from the Dinos. The 23-year-old isn’t big or powerful but struck out 9.59 batters per nine innings in 2019, the best mark in the league.
If you're watching the Wyverns, there are a couple position players worth following. Third baseman Jeong Choi, 33, has had an OPS of .900 or better in 10 straight seasons, while first baseman Jamie Romak has hit 29, 43 and 31 home runs the past three campaigns.
On Twitter, a really good follow is Dan Kurtz (@MyKBO), who was born in South Korea, grew up in the eastern part of Pennsylvania and tweets out plenty of KBO content in English.
Other former MLB pitchers new to the KBO include Mike Wright (Dinos), Dan Straily (Giants) and Adrian Sampson (Giants), although Sampson is currently on an approved leave of absence. The Twins have a couple of solid Americans in Tyler Wilson (14-7, 2.92 ERA, 137 strikeouts) and Casey Kelly (14-12, 2.55 ERA, 126 26 strikeouts).
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: May 4, 2020, 5:33 p.m.
