The Korean Baseball Organization has to be taken seriously.

The country’s premier baseball league’s last two significant imports have both produced at high major league levels, and now a third has the potential to be the best of the group.

On the heels of Hyun-jin Ryu and Jung-ho Kang, the KBO has posted its first potentially impactful power-hitting prospect in Byung-ho Park. The 29-year-old first baseman hit 53 home runs in the KBO last season, 52 the year before and was the league’s MVP in 2012 and 2013. He could recapture the award for the 2015 season.

During Major League Baseball’s general manager meetings last week, it was announced that the Minnesota Twins submitted the winning bid—$12.85 million—for the rights to negotiate a contract with Park. If the Twins cannot work out a deal with Park within 30 days from the time they won the bidding, which happened on Nov. 9, they will be refunded the bid and Park will return to Korea.

“Our evaluators think he can make the transition [to the majors],” Twins general manager Terry Ryan told John Shipley of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “We’ve seen him play a lot and we think he can help lengthen our lineup and make it work out for everybody.” 

The KBO is known as a hitter-friendly league, but coming on the heels of Kang’s breakout 2015 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who posted a $5 million bid to negotiate with him, there is a more legitimate belief that Park can step into the majors and have a meaningful impact right away.

Kang, a former teammate of Park in Korea, was not seen as the kind of player who might finish third in National League Rookie of the Year voting when he finished his first spring training with the Pirates. He batted .200 with 17 strikeouts in 45 at-bats after hitting .356/.459/.739 the season before in the KBO. But after making the team’s Opening Day roster and eventually becoming its starting shortstop, Kang finished the season with a .287/.355/.461 with an .816 OPS and 124 OPS+.

Knowing it is possible for dominant KBO hitters to have success in the majors, Park is being looked at as more than just a player who would succeed in the minors. According to two MLB officials with teams that pursued Park, the exit velocities off his bat were on par with some of the best hitters in the majors, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reported.

“The thought process from our scouts who have seen him extensively is that this guy has an outstanding chance to come over here and be a middle-of-the-order presence,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said on MLB Network last week. “We decided to pursue it mainly because it’s a big right-handed bat that we feel is going to play over here.”

Other successful KBO players have all been pitchers before Kang. Most recently it has been Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Hyun-jin Ryu, who has given his club a 3.14 ERA and 2.97 FIP over his two seasons. He missed last year with a shoulder injury, but during his first two years with the Dodgers, Ryu’s FanGraphs WAR was on the same level as ace Zack Greinke.

Of course, hitters are different and come with a different set of judging criteria. As an example, Eric Thames, who managed to play only two major league seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners, hit 47 homers in the KBO last season. Also, pitchers typically throw much slower in Korea. 

Park hit .343/.436/.714 with a 1.150 OPS last season, but he also struck out 161 times in 622 plate appearances. Those strikeouts are a result of a long swing, and it will most certainly have to be compacted if he is going to hit the kind of fastballs with which major league pitchers will definitely challenge him.

But again, Kang’s success as a hitter this past season with Pittsburgh is seen as a positive thing for Park’s transition, assuming the Twins are able to sign him.

“He’s right in the prime of his career,” Ryan told Shipley. “He’s got of lot of baseball behind him in that Korean league, which is similar to the Japanese league. They have some decent players there that have had some success in the major leagues.”

Park is likely to find some of that in the American League, where he’d likely be a designated hitter. Those exit velocities do not lie, and there are plenty of current major leaguers who are All-Stars despite massive strikeout totals. 

Park has the talent to be the next player of that ilk, further solidifying the KBO as more than just a place to find pitchers.

 

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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