A couple weeks ago, Yakyu Cosmopolitan tweeted the following regarding Lee Jung-hoo's future:
That tweet got me thinking - how many KBO superstars moved to Japan to play in NPB and who was the last one to do so? I sat down and did some research and I came up with a list of twelve Korean players who started their careers in KBO and then moved to NPB. Now note how I phrased that - I specifically am not counting Korean players like Park Chan-ho and Kim Byung-hyun who played in MLB before playing in either NPB or KBO and I'm also not counting foreign players like Tyrone Woods who played in KBO before coming to NPB.
The first KBO superstar to move to Japan was Sun Dong-yol who signed with the Chunichi Dragons for the 1996 season. The last KBO stars to play in NPB were Lee Dae-ho and Oh Seung-hwan in 2015. Since then, six other KBO stars have left Korea to go directly to MLB - Park Byung-ho and Kim Hyun-soo in 2016, Hwang Jae-gyun in 2017, Kim Kwang-hyun in 2020 and Yang Hyeon-jong and Kim Ha-seong in 2021. Prior to 2016 I believe there had been only two KBO players who joined MLB teams without having played in NPB first - Ryu Hyun-jin in 2013 and Kang Jung-ho in 2015. So Yakyu Cosmopolitan was right - KBO stars used to come to NPB regularly but now they're bypassing the league to go to MLB.
I thought I'd round this post off with the cards of all twelve KBO players who played in NPB in more or less chronological order. My goal was to show a KBO card of the player from before they came to NPB and then an NPB card but I was thwarted in two cases - I don't have any KBO cards of Sun Dong-yol and the only KBO cards I have for Kim Tae-kyun are from after his stint in NPB.
Sun Dong-yol Chunichi Dragons 1996-99
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| 1999 BBM #101 |
Lee Sang-hoon (Samson) Chunichi Dragons 1998-99
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| 1994 Teleca Twins #47 |
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| 1999 BBM #61 |
Lee Jong-beom Chunichi Dragons 1998-2001
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| 1994 Teleca #18 |
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| 2000 BBM #404 |
Koo Dae-Sung Orix BlueWave 2001-04
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| 2000 Teleca #78 |
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| 2001 BBM Late Series #603 |
Chung Min-tae Yomiuri Giants 2001-02
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| 1999 Teleca #181 |
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| 2002 BBM Central League Champion Giants #YG12 |
Lee Seung-Yeop Chiba Lotte Marines 2004-05, Yomiuri Giants 2006-10, Orix Buffaloes 2011
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| 1999 Teleca Premium #52 |
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| 2007 Calbee #TR-10 |
Lee Byung-kyu Chunichi Dragons 2007-09
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| 1999 Teleca #114 |
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| 2007 BBM Dragons #D079 |
Lim Chong-yong Tokyo Yakult Swallows 2008-12
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| 2000 Teleca #59 |
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| 2010 Bandai Owners League 02 #031 |
Kim Tae-kyun Chiba Lotte Marines 2010-11
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| 2014 Superstar Baseball Season One #SBC01-113 |
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| 2011 BBM Marines #M56 |
Lee Bum-ho Fukuoka Softbank Hawks 2010
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| 2000 Teleca #R9 |
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| 2010 BBM Hawks #H46 |
Lee Dae-ho Orix Buffaloes 2012-13, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks 2014-15
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| 2010 KBO Game Set #AL-006 |
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| 2013 Calbee #AS-16 |
Oh Seung-hwan Hanshin Tigers 2014-15
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| 2010 KBO Game Set #AS-004 |
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| 2014 Calbee #137 |
Nine of the twelve players ranked on
the "KBO 40 Legends" list, a ranking done last year of the top 40 players in the first 40 years of the KBO's existence. Two of the other three players (Lee Dae-ho and Oh Seung-hwan) were still active last season and therefore ineligible for the list.
Five of the players used their time in NPB as a springboard to head to MLB - Lee Sang-hoon, Koo Dae-sung, Lim Chang-yong, Lee Dae-ho and Oh Seung-hwan. Six of the remaining seven players returned to KBO after their NPB stint with the other - Sun Dong-yol - retiring rather than returning.
4 comments:
That is interesting, I hadn't even noticed that the trend of KBO players to NPB had dried up in recent years. Makes sense though, these days its more of a lateral move than a step up the ladder compared to going to MLB.
Yeah, I hadn't noticed either. In fact, my first thought when I saw his tweet was "that can't be right" but after doing a little research, I saw that it was.
I think Rhee Dae-eun may have been the last.. there was another named Myoung something.. think he played on Rakuten
As I said, I was specifically writing about guys who had been stars in KBO before coming to Japan. Rhee falls into the category of guys like Park Chan-ho and Kim Byung-hyun who played in MLB (or MLB organizations in the case of Rhee) rather than KBO before they played in NPB. I think the Eagles player you're talking about is Kim Moo-young - he played for the Hawks from 2009 to 2015 and the Eagles in 2016. He was born in South Korea but went to high school in Japan, making him have to enter NPB through the draft. Obviously he doesn't fit the category of player that I'm talking about either.
For what it's worth, neither Rhee nor Kim played in NPB after 2016 so it would really only move the window up by one year.
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