Japan is in discussions with Korea to have an end of the season All Star game. The challenge is finding an acceptable date for the game. Both the winners of the KBO and the NPB will be participating in the Asia Series in November, the same time frame they discussed having the All Star game.
You can read about the game here: http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2971547
There seems to be an Asian flavor with the success of pitchers in the major leagues this year, from Yu Darvish, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Wei-Yen Chen and Hisashi Iwakuma. These are pitchers from Japan, Taiwan and Korea who jumped their professional leagues in an attempt to find success and riches in the major leagues.
Normally, these Asian pitchers bring a certain style major leaguers are not yet used to and after their second year in the major leagues they need to adjust in order to have success. Except for Ryu who is in his first year the three other pitchers are having better years in their second year with Darvish being in the conversation as one of the top pitchers in the game. You can see an analysis of these Asian pitchers and their numbers here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/maybe-its-time-we-stop-underrating-pitchers-from-asian-countries/#more-123666
The next big Asian pitcher to make the jump will probably be Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, once a teammate of Iwakuma with the Rakuten Golden Eagles and a rival of Yu Darvish when discussions occurred over who was the best pitcher in the NPB. Tanaka has broken a number of records in high school once held by Daisuke Matsuzaka. Whenever he pitches there are scouts from a number of teams with radar guns in hand to measure his fastball. The Yankees are the one team that shows a particular interest in him.
Hiroki Kuroda is having another strong year for the Yankees and Junichi Tazawa, who bypassed the NPB draft to jump to the major leagues has worked himself into the closer conversation with the Red Sox. His Red Sox teammate Koji Uehara has some of the best walk to strikeout numbers in the major leagues and when healthy is considered one of the top relievers in the game.
Major league scouts may find their bats in the Caribbean but their arms appear to be located in Asia. Perhaps it is those 150 pitch counts when in high school that help strenghten those arms.
Chris Oxspring is in his second tour of duty in Korea. In his first tour of duty in 2007 and 2008 he pitched for the LG Twins going 14-15 with a 3.71 ERA. This year he is pitching for the struggling Lotte Giants, two surgeries later to get his arm healthy. After getting off to a slow start (0-3 with 14 earned runs and 14 walks in 19 innings) in his first four starts he has turned his season around. The last three starts for Chis he has only given up one earned run in 22 innings with just six walks and winning all three games. His last start he threw a complete game shutout.
The Australian has pitched in a number of different countries. In addition to pitching for his own Sidney Blue Sox in the Australian Baseball League during the winter months he has also pitched briefly for the San Diego Padres in the Major Leagues and the Hanshin Tigers in Japan. At 38 years old he does not have many more leagues left to pitch in.
You can read the article here: http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/fullstory/2013/05/09/1/4500000000AEN20130509007700315F.HTML
The Lotte Giants are currently 13-14-1, five and a half games behind the leading Nexxen Heros. You can follow all the KBO action here: http://www.mykbo.net/standings
Those who were resistant to expansion will say “I told you so” as they argue expanding the KBO would water down the game and force fans to watch inferior talent. It is hard to swallow fans would react so quickly to expansion. Perhaps the real culprit is their disappointing showing at the World Baseball Classic where the team did not advance past the first round despite a 2-1 record. Combine that with the departure of their best pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu for the major leagues and a couple years ago their top hitter Dae-ho Lee signing with a Japanese team. It is difficult to be enthusiastic about your league when your best players depart for the challenge of what they feel is a better league.
Perhaps the owners have gotten complacent with the continued increase in attendance, believing the fans will come regardless of what they do. Owners have to make it fun for the average fan to come to the park. Teams can not rely on the fervent fan for their survival. The owners did sour the fans with their resistance of expansion.
Below are the average drop in attendance for each of the teams, with only the Kia Tigers seeing an increase:
LG Twins - close to a 2,000 fan per game drop.
SK Wyverns - a 4,700 fan per game drop.
Doosan Bears - a 5,000 fan per game drop
Lotte Giants - an 8,000 plus fan per game drop
Kia Tigers - a 1,000 increase in fans per game.
Samsung Lions - the defending champions have seen a 2,000 plus fan per game drop
Hanwha Eagles - Despite the loss of Ryu they have seen a slight drop of about 100 fans per game
Nexen Heros - a 3,000 plus fans per game drop.
The expansion team NC dinos is not making up for the decrease averaging only about 6,700 fans per game.
Complete info can be found at http://www.mykbo.net/KBO_news
The Hanwha Eagles finished in last place even when they had Hyun-Jin Ryu. At least with him on the mound they never suffered a 13 game losing streak to start the season. The Hanwha Eagles lost to the LG Twins 8-0 for their 13th loss to start the season, a record for the KBO. The previous record was 12, achieved by the Lotte Giants in 2003.
The next series for the Eagles is against the expansion team NC Dinos. With the Dinos starting their season with seven straight losses it was thought this could be a series of teams looking for their first wins. The Dinos have gotten hot, winning three of their last four, beating the SK Wyverns in their last two games to put their record at 3-8.
Pitching has been the Eagles biggest issue. They are last in the KBO in ERA at 6.95. The closest team to them is the Nexen Heros at 6.00. They also have a run differential of minus 61. The Heros are again the next worst with a minus 28. At least the Heros can say they have won seven of their first 13 games, one game over .500.
The Eagles two foreign pitchers Denny Bautista and Dana Eveland are not making fans forget the loss of Ryu. Bautista has a 4.91 ERA in three starts but he has shown some promise with a KBO leading 26 whiffs in just 18 innings of work. He will get the opening start against the NC Dinos in an attempt to break the losing streak. Eveland may be the pitcher that needs to worry about getting the plane ticket back to the United States with his 7.04 ERA. He’s been smacked around for 24 hits in just 15 plus innings.
The fans of the Hanwha Eagles have to hope their ownership does something with the $25 million plus they received from the Dodgers for Ryu’s services. Last year the Eagles signed sentimental favorite Chan Ho Park to pitch for them. The years have not been good for Park’s right arm, but he is still the most popular player in Korea because of his success in the major leagues. Park is only a shell of what he used to be, but that didn’t prevent the crowds from showing up to watch their hero pitch. Ryu hopes when his career is done he will have passed Park’s record for most wins by an Asian pitcher in the major leagues. The Eagles can only hope they will win more games than their ex-pitcher before the year is done.
Canada may remember pitcher Su-Min Lee. In the 18 and under tournament in Seoul he pitched Korea to a second round win, going six plus innings and striking out seven in Korea’s 9-3 win over Canada. It was one of three losses for Canada in the tournament. The box score for that game can be found here: http://www.ibaf.org/stats/2012/Korea/games/41.htm
The United States team may remember him as well as he was the starting pitcher in their 8-2 win. He only went five innings in that game, striking out just three. It was one of two losses the United States experienced in the tournament. The box score for that game can be found here: http://www.ibaf.org/stats/2012/Korea/games/16.htm
He finished the tournament 2-0 with an unimpressive 3.00 ERA and 16 whiffs in 18 innings, but two impressive victories over the two teams who finished first and second in the tournament.
http://www.mykbo.net/KBO_news reports that Lee struck out 26 hitters (24 in nine innings) in a 2-1 win. Lee ended the game throwing 162 pitches. The 26 strikeouts in one game is a Korean high school record. If he still has a left arm he should be pitching again for the Korean 18 and under team.
Major league baseball announced that of the 856 players on major league 25 man rosters (106 of which are on the disabled or restricted list) 241 of those players were born outside the 50 United States. That is 28.2 percent of all players, the fourth highest mark. The year 2005 had the highest percentage with 29.2, followed by 2007 (29) and 2012 (28.4).
The countries and territories outside the 50 United States that make up this list include:
Dominican Republic (89, a drop from the 95 they had last year), Venezuela (63, a drop from the 66 they had last year), Canada (17), Cuba (15, their highest total), Mexico (14), Puerto Rico (13), Japan (11), Colombia (4), Panama (4), Curacao (3), Australia (2), South Korea (2), Nicaragua (2), Netherlands (1) and Taiwan (1).
The Milwaukee Brewers lead all teams with 14 foreign born players, followed by the Texas Rangers with 13.
You can read the press release here: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130401&content_id=43618468&vkey=pr_mlb&c_id=mlb
Does this mean the fact they include Puerto Rico in this list that if a player L.J. Hoes makes a major league opening day roster he would be placed on this list since he was born in Washington, D.C., which is not considered one of the 50 states? Myworld is not aware of any current players born in Washington, D.C. currently on a major league opening day roster.
1f99Not a Wizard of Oz review, but the potential favoirtes to win the KBO this year, either the defending champion Samsung Lions, the Kia Tigers or the Poosan Bears. After their disappointing performance in the WBC using players who many felt were past their prime and with no future five tool players or three digit fastball pitchers on the horizon, the KBO has concerns about their ability to continue to draw fans if there are no players attractive enough to watch. You can read the article here: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/sports/2013/04/136_133048.html
It was opening day in the KBO. The Doosan Bears hit two grandslams, one each by Hyun-Soo Kim and Jae-Won Oh to beat the defending champion Samsung Lions 9-4. The LG Twins beat the SK Wyverns 7-4, the difference being the grand slam hit by Sung-hoon Jung. Radhames Liz struck out nine in the start.
The Kia Tigers and and Lotte Giants each put together one run victories in their openers, the Tigers outslugging the Nexen Heros 10-9 and the Giants defeating the Hanwha Eagles 5-4.
You can follow the progress of the KBO here: http://www.mykbo.net/KBO_news
If you want to read an analysis about the KBO teams you can go here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aylmhlweJ5eFVfvpXcxf70yPheKsbHvz68PdhFshTvE/edit?usp=sharing&pli=1
It is a better analysis than myworld could ever do and is brought to you by mykbo.net.
The WBC game between Japan and Brazil was watched by one third of all televisions in Japan. The rating topped all the 2012 Olympic events. You can read about it here: http://www.ibaf.org/en/news/2013/03/09/one-third-of-all-tvs-on-in-japan-tuned-to-world-ba/61f95ced-a33f-498a-ade5-ffef134765b3
And the failure of Korea was blamed on Korean players intoxicated with their own success, with many players opting out of the WBC to focus on their major league clubs or nursing injuries. There were also no incentives, such as exemption from military service to entice players to participate. Past success created selfishness and a loss of will to win for Korea. You can read the article here: http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2968145