Joohwan Choi.
SSG Landers infielder Choi Joo-hwan (35) was selected first overall in the second round of the professional baseball draft and transferred to Kiwoom Heroes.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and 10 clubs held the 2023 second round draft privately at a hotel in Seoul on the 22nd.
In the second draft, nominations were made in reverse order of performance this season, and Kiwoom, which ranked last, called Choi Joo-hwan.
Choi Joo-hwan, who entered the professional ranks through the Doosan Bears in 2006, is a veteran infielder who has played in a total of 1,268 games in the KBO League, recording a batting average of 0.279, 115 home runs, 594 RBIs, and 513 runs.
He qualified as a free agent (FA) after the end of the 2020 season and signed a four-year contract worth up to 4.2 billion won with the SK Wyverns (predecessor of SSG). He had a bad last year, but bounced back this year by hitting 20 home runs, and ended up changing teams with one year left on his free agent contract.
Following Kiwoom, the Hanwha Eagles nominated LG pitchers including Lee Sang-gyu and the Samsung Lions named Choi Seong-hoon.
While the Lotte Giants, KIA Tigers, NC Dinos, and LG gave up their first-round picks, Doosan took LG catcher Kim Ki-yeon, SSG took NC catcher Park Dae-on, and KT Wiz took Samsung pitcher Woo Gyu-min.
In the second round, Kiwoom has pitcher Seok-ju Oh (LG), Samsung has pitcher Yang Hyun (Kiwoom), Lotte has infielder Oh Seon-jin (Hanwha), KIA has pitcher Lee Hyeong-beom (Doosan), NC has outfielder Song Seung-hwan (Doosan), and KT has pitcher Lee Tae-gyu (KIA). nominated.
Then, in the third round, Hanwha had pitcher Bae Min-seo (NC), Samsung had infielder Jeon Byeong-woo (Kiwoom), Lotte had infielder Choi Hang (SSG), KIA had infielder Go Myeong-seong (KT), NC had pitcher Kim Jae-yeol (KIA), and SSG had catcher Shin Beom-su. (KIA), KT recruited infielder Kim Cheol-ho (NC), and LG recruited pitcher Lee Jong-jun (NC).
Kangmin Kim.
This season's bottom three clubs were able to nominate two additional players in the 4th and 5th rounds, and SSG's franchise star and last year's Korean Series Most Valuable Player (MVP) Kim Kang-min was selected by Hanwha. Kiwoom also nominated pitcher Seong-Hoon Cho (SSG).
A total of 22 players changed teams through the second draft. Kiwoom, Hanwha, Samsung, and KT nominated the most three people, while LG and Doosan nominated only one person, the fewest.
In order to prevent a loss of power from a specific club, only four players could be nominated from one club, but LG, SSG, and NC all lost four players. Not a single player left Lotte.
The second draft, which was held every other year from 2011 to 2019, was abolished in 2021 and revived two years later. As the Futures (2nd team) free agent (FA) system, which was introduced instead of the second draft, was not actively implemented, the KBO decided to re-conduct the second draft every two years starting this year.
Each club can nominate players other than the 35 protected players from the other 9 clubs, but cannot nominate players in their first to third years as a professional, free agents that year, or foreign players.
The transfer amount is 400 million won for the 1st round, 300 million won for the 2nd round, and 200 million won for the 3rd round, and 100 million won for the 4th round and below, which can be nominated by the bottom 3 teams. 스포츠토토맨