The KT Wiz is on high alert to prepare for the 2025 season. The NPB is aiming again for Mel Rojas Jr., 34, who led the Wizards from last place to fall baseball.
Reporter Mike Rodriguez, who works on the official U.S. Major League Baseball website MLB.com , said on his official SNS, “According to sources, two Japanese professional baseball teams and one Major League National League team are aiming for Rojas Jr.” and introduced the KBO league record this year.
Rojas Jr. is considered one of the key players who made KT’s magical 2024 this year. After returning to the KBO League and KT in four years after signing a contract worth a total of 900,000 U.S. dollars ahead of this season, he has played in all 144 games this year with a batting average of 0.329 (188 hits in 572 times at bat), 32 homers, 112 RBIs, 108 runs and two steals, and a on-base percentage of 0.468 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) of 0.989.
In this season, KT fell to 10th place in mid-April due to injuries to its key players, and remained in 9th place until the end of June. However, Rojas Jr. continuously energized the team. He hit 10 home runs and 25 RBIs in March and April in the beginning, and led the team with a batting average of 0.413 (33 hits in 80 at-bats) in July. He showed signs of fatigue in September, but his teammates, who had been slow down, showed explosive momentum and shared the burden of Rojas Jr. with him.
He shone the brightest at the critical moment. In October, Rojas Jr. led the team to a 4-3 come-from-behind victory against Kim Kwang-hyun, a three-run home run from left-center, in the top of the eighth inning when KT was losing 1-3 against SSG Landers in the first tiebreaker game (5th place). It was the moment when KT, which was in last place, dramatically advanced to the fall baseball league. When asked by reporters about KT’s potential this year, Rojas Jr. said, “It’s because we are magicians. We came all the way here by magic.”
After joining the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2010, Rojas Jr. moved around Triple-A and finally failed to enter the big league, and came to Korea for a total of $400,000 in 2017. In Korea, with a batting average of 0.321 in 511 games and 132 home runs, 409 RBIs and an OPS of 0.982 in the first four seasons, he played a big role in the new team KT’s rise to the strong team. In particular, in 2020, the last year, he won the regular season MVP with a batting average of 0.349 in 142 games and a 135 RBIs and joined the NPB Hanshin Tigers based on his performance.
However, in the NPB, he had a batting average of 0.220 (82 hits in 372 times at bat) in 149 games for two years, 17 homers and 48 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.697 and was eventually informed by Hanshin that he could not renew his contract. Afterwards, he moved to the Dominican Winter League, the Mexican League, and the independent league, before rejoining KT this year.
Amid a successful return season, attention is focusing on whether Rojas will try again at the age of his old age on the Japanese NPB and the U.S. Major League stage. 토토사이트
