Was excessive entry into the U.S. a poison? Once the best finisher in the KBO League, Ko is collapsing as he suffered a hard blow in the minor leagues.
Ko Woo-suk, a member of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos in the minor league Double-A under the Miami Marlins in the U.S., made four hits and three runs in 0.2 innings in the ninth inning of the 2024 minor league Double-A Mississippi Braves home game at Florida Stadium on July 21 (Korea time).
After the end of the 2023 KBO League season with the LG Twins, Ko was eligible to play overseas through posting, and successfully signed a two-year, 4.5 million-dollar contract with the San Diego Padres. However, he failed to enter the big leagues by showing poor performances in consecutive exhibition games of the San Diego Spring Training (six games, five innings, two losses and one hold average of 12.60) and the Minor League Double A (ten games, 4.38).
In the end, San Diego carried out a one-on-one trade with Miami in May, and Ko Woo-seok was tied with three minor leaguers and moved the team.
In Miami, Ko Woo-seok also failed to get a seat. On May 31, My Mammy excluded Ko from the club’s 40-man Major League roster and placed him on the DFA list. This makes it unlikely that he will enter the big league, but Ko Woo-seok, who was unable to return to the KBO league this year due to regulations, continued to challenge himself in the minor leagues.
His trial continued. He pitched in 16 games this season with Shrimp, Triple-A’s Jacksonville store under Miami, and was sluggish with 2.29 ERA with two wins and one hold, and was demoted to the Double-A team, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, on Wednesday last week. However, he has shown even more sluggish performance in Double-A. After being demoted to Double-A, his ERA soared to a whopping 23.63 in three games.
In the match against Mississippi, which was the first appearance in a week, he again threw the worst pitch and raised skepticism that it would be meaningful to continue his challenge on the U.S. stage. Ko Woo-seok’s shocking slump, who had 139 saves and was the king of relief in the KBO League, is a sad scene that even hurts the pride of Korean baseball, no matter how much difference in league level is considered.
Restoring trust in physical condition comes first
On the other hand, Ko Woo-seok’s poor performance was also predicted to some extent. In the 2023 season, just before entering the U.S. stage, he also showed extreme sluggishness in the KBO League with 3 wins, 8 losses, 15 saves and an earned run of 8.31 in 44 innings in 44 regular season games, and 4 games in the Korean Series with 1 win, 1 loss and 1 save. Although it was overshadowed by the fact that his team LG won the overall championship for the first time in 29 years with overwhelming power, it was the lowest performance among all 10 KBO league teams.
Nevertheless, Ko Woo-seok’s unexpected success in entering the big league was due to his excellent speed (157km maximum speed, 2022) and growth potential due to his still young age.
However, he failed to regain his confinement in his prime in the minor leagues after advancing to the U.S., confirming that last season’s slump was not a temporary slump. Even in his prime in the KBO league, Ko had been evaluated as vulnerable to pressure as a closer.
The fact that two teams have already undergone trade-release waiting-minor league demotion in less than half a year of entering the U.S. means that U.S. clubs have already completely abandoned their expectations of Ko Woo-seok. To be honest, it seems impossible to enter the big league next year with Ko Woo-seok’s current performance. For Ko Woo-seok, the realistic alternative is to seek to re-enter the big league next season or to return to Korea while maintaining a sense of play by somehow holding out in the minor leagues until this season.
If Ko seeks to return to Korea, he should return to LG, his original team. Realistically, LG does not have much to be desired. When LG allowed Ko to go to the U.S., the team that won the title last season, it earned profits from posting posts as well as securing salary cap. LG also made up for his absence by discovering a new closing pitcher named Yoo Young-chan, who has 19 saves (third) and an earned run score of 2.20. LG, which is ranking second this season, has been cruising smoothly with five consecutive wins.
For Ko Woo-seok, regardless of whether he will try again in the big league for the rest of the season, the first thing to do is to restore trust in his physical condition in order to be able to work again in the KBO league. 유흥알바
