After four free agents, Seo has come down to a relatively free grade in compensation. Will Seo Geon-chang (35) of the Kia Tigers, who fired a signal of revival this season, appear in the FA market.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) announced on Tuesday the list of players eligible for the 2025 FA. A total of 30 players are eligible for the FA this year, with three in A grade, 15 in B grade and 12 in C grade. Among them, 13 were eligible for the FA for the first time, nine were re-qualified, and eight were already eligible but did not apply for the FA approval.
This year’s combined championship team, KIA, had three players. Pitchers Lim Ki-young (31), Jang Hyun-sik (29), and Seo Geon-chang were featured. This year is the first season for Lim and Jang to qualify for the FA, and both players received B grades. Seo came out with C grades.
Seo Kun-chang, who was released by the LG Twins after the end of last season, signed an annual contract with Kia, his hometown team, in January this year for an annual salary of 50 million won (approx. He had a batting average of 0.310 (63 hits in 203 times at bat), one homer, 26 RBIs and 40 runs scored, three steals, and an on-base percentage of 0.416 slugging percentage of 0.404 and an OPS of 0.820 in 94 games. He seems to have recovered completely from the batting performance, and he has also moved between the first and second basemen in defense, filling the gap among injured players.
Although Seo went 0-for-4 in two matches in the Korean Series, Seo Geon-chang will be wearing the championship ring 17 years after his professional debut in 2008 as his team won four games and one after five games. Soon after, he entered the FA market.
This is the fourth year that Seo Geon-chang has been on the list of FA players announced by the KBO. He became the first FA player after the end of the 2021 season. He started the season with Kiwoom Heroes and volunteered to sign an annual contract worth 250 million won (237 million U.S. dollars), a decrease of more than 100 million won (350 million won) from the previous year. He chose “B” grade, which allows free transfer, amid more demand than “A” grade, which makes it difficult for him to transfer.
Things have changed, however, as he was traded to LG during the season. His salary was set to be the second highest after Yoo Kang-nam (currently Lotte) and Chae Eun-seong (currently Hanwha), who belonged to LG at the time, and Seo quickly became an A-class player. Having unsatisfied performance with his batting average of 0.277 that year, he chose to return to the FA again. 메이저사이트
However, in the two seasons since then, Seo has displayed performance that he would never dare to apply for an FA. He only posted a batting average of 0.224 in 77 games in 2022, and failed to contribute at all to his performance with a batting average of 0.200 in the season when LG won the combined championship last year. He lost ground in defense due to increased number of errors, and gave up applying for an FA despite his downgrade to Grade B.
Things have changed now. Not only has Seo Geon-chang’s own performance recovered, but there is also a big difference between A, B and C grades. Other teams that want to recruit A-grade players must pay one compensation player (excluding 20 protected players) and 200 percent of the previous year’s salary or 300 percent of the previous year’s salary to their original teams. For B-grade players, one compensation player (25 protected players) and 100 percent of the previous year’s salary or 200 percent of the previous year’s salary must be paid. In contrast, for C-grade players, they only need to pay 150 percent of the previous year’s salary without compensation players. In addition, the annual salary is at least 150 million won.
With this development, some teams could seek to recruit Seo. Notably, Kiwoom, which is its former team and whose main second baseman Kim Hye-sung (25) is seeking to join the Major League last year, could also seek to recruit again.
Meanwhile, players eligible for FA in 2025 must apply for approval to exercise their FA rights to the KBO by Nov. 4, two days after the announcement, and the KBO will announce the players who exercised their FA rights as FA-approved players on Nov. 5, the day after the closing of the application. FA-approved players can negotiate with all clubs (including overseas clubs) for player contracts from Nov. 6, the day after the announcement.
