SSG Landers, whose starting lineup has collapsed over the past two seasons, is expecting the birth of an all-time one-two punch.
On the 16th, SSG signed a contract with Korean major leaguer Mitch White, who is well known to Korean fans for a total of $1 million, similar to “Korean Express” Park Chan-ho. A day later, on the 17th, he announced that he had re-signed Drew Anderson, who entered the KBO League as a substitute this season and showed off his all-time strikeout ability, for a total of $1.2 million (1.15 million per year, 50,000 options).
SSG, which had the honor of winning the wire-to-wire title in the 2022 regular season and winning the Korean Series, fell to third place last year, and this year ended the season by failing to advance to autumn baseball in sixth place after a fifth-place match.
The biggest difference from two years ago was the mound. SSG, which was ranked fourth (3.87) in the team’s ERA league in 2022, saw its pitching staff decline to seventh (4.37) in 2023 and 10th (5.25) this year. The problem with the starting lineup was particularly serious. The mound was solid with the second (3.44) starting ERA in 2022 but suffered humiliation of ranking last for two consecutive seasons in 2023 (4.53) and 2024 (5.26).
They also failed to benefit from foreign pitchers. In 2023, SSG started the season with a combination of Eni Romero and Kirk McCarty, but Romero failed to throw a single game and was replaced by Roenis Elias. McCarty displayed good performance with 9 wins, 5 losses and an ERA of 3.39, but only played 130 innings in 24 games due to frequent injuries. He pitched fewer innings than Elias (8-6, 3.70 in 131 ⅓ in 22 games) who joined the team since late May.
Although his performance was proven, McCarty failed to renew his contract after the end of the 2023 season due to his injury. SSG has opted to renew his contract with Elias, who displayed impressive performance in the fall baseball league. However, this time, Elias had a hiatus during the season due to his injury. His performance in the 2024 season (7 wins, 7 losses and 4.08 ERA in 22 games) was also lower than that of last year.
Anderson was the only hope among the SSG starters for this season. Anderson, who made his Korean debut as a substitute for Robert Duggar, made his debut in a match against the Kia Tigers at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field on May 10. He posted a maximum speed of 159 kilometers per hour on the electronic display, striking out six in three innings and making a strong impression.
Since then, Anderson has set an all-time record related to strikeouts. He had 100 strikeouts in just 65 innings, surpassing Koo Dae-sung (68 ⅓ innings) in 1996, and achieved the minimum 100 strikeouts in KBO league history. He had double-digit strikeouts (10-11-11-10) in four consecutive games since the game against the Lotte Giants on July 11, becoming the second highest-ranked player after Sun Dong-yeol (five consecutive games) in 1991.
Anderson made a soft landing in the KBO League with a double-digit victory and a 3.89 ERA in 24 games in his first year since his debut. Despite playing only 115 ⅔ innings, he has taken away 158 strikeouts, tied for seventh in the league. The number of strikeouts per nine innings is 12.29, surpassing the number of 1996 (11.85) and 1997 (11.75), Koo Dae-sung (11.68), Sun Dong-yeol (11.68) in 1993, and Ariel Miranda (11.66 or more) in 2021.
SSG verified Anderson’s pitching in the first round of the league with his strikeout ability, an important factor of foreign pitchers, and decided that he would show longer innings next season if he went through the starting build-up process from the spring camp.
SSG, which decided to select Anderson as a foreign player, formed a one-two punch by recruiting White, a similar type of “fireballer” pitcher. White, who was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers as the 65th overall pick in the second round of the 2016 draft, received high expectations as he ranked fourth in 2018 and ninth in 2019.
White, who achieved his big league debut dream by playing two games (three innings) in 2020, showed promise in 2021 by recording one win, three losses and an ERA of 3.66 in 21 games (four starts) despite repeated relegation and call-ups. In 2022, the Dodgers wanted to establish themselves little by little with one win, two losses and an ERA of 3.70, but in the end, the Dodgers traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays.
After leaving the Dodgers, White finished the season with the Milwaukee Brewers after playing for the Toronto Blue Jays and the San Francisco Giants. In the five seasons of the Major League, he pitched in 471 ⅔ innings in 126 games (99 starts) to post 26 wins, 21 losses, one save and an earned run average of 3.93.
“He is a powerful pitcher with outstanding fastball capabilities. He has fast speed of 152 km/h and 156 km/h on average this season,” SSG said. “He also has excellent breaking ball completion including pitch seam, slider, curve and sweeper with large angles and sharp movements. High fastball and high angle curve will be a big advantage in ABS environment,” he said.
White boasts strikeouts as well as Anderson. White (9.85) was higher than Anderson (8.19) in strikeouts per nine innings in the minor league. 카지노사이트 The KBO league also deserves to see the power of the “K-machine.”
From SK Wyverns to SSG, there have been only two seasons in which foreign one-two punches have won in double digits at the same time in the club’s history. They are Kenny Rayburn (17-8, 3.27 ERA) and Mike Romano (12-4, 3.69 ERA) in 2007, and Merrill Kelly (16-7, 3.60 ERA) and Scott Diamond (10-7, 4.42 ERA) in 2017. Among them, Rayburn and Romano’s one-two punches combined for 30 wins to lead SK to the top of the regular season, and also contributed to the team’s first unified championship with outstanding pitching in the Korean Series.
SSG, which had been plagued by selection problems for the past two years, started to strengthen its weaknesses after the end of the season and quickly completed the formation of a one-two punch for foreigners. Expectations are already rising for the 2025 season whether the White-Anderson duo can become SSG’s all-time foreign duo as expected.
