The 10 professional baseball teams are completing the recruitment of foreign players, which is the core of the team's history.메이저놀이터

Nine clubs have completed foreign player contracts, and the defending champion KIA Tigers have the only place left.

KIA is known to give up its contract with existing foreign hitter Socrates Brito and continue last-minute contract negotiations with new foreign hitter Patrick Wisdom.

As KIA replaced foreign batters, the ransom ranking of foreign players in 2025 professional baseball was decided.

The maximum ransom that can be given to a new foreign player is $1 million, so KIA's new foreign hitter does not affect the ranking.

The top paid players in the 2025 season are KIA ace James Nail, KT Wiz center hitter Mel Rojas Jr. and SSG Landers slugger Guillermo Herredia. All three players will receive up to 1.8 million U.S. dollars.

Nail and Herredia have $200,000 of these at stake as options. The size of Rojas' options has not been disclosed.

Nail led the team to a combined championship with a 12-5 record and 2.53 ERA in the 2024 season.

Although he was away due to injury at the end of the regular season, he returned to the Korean Series with the Samsung Lions and played an active role with one win and an ERA of 2.53 in two games.

With a batting average of 0.360, 21 homers and 118 RBIs, Heredia led the SSG lineup by ranking first in the batting average, second in the number of hits (195), and third in the RBIs.

Rojas showed perfect performance with a batting average of 0.329 (7th), 32 homers (joint sixth), and 112 RBIs (joint fifth). KT, which gave Rojas 1.8 million dollars, invested the most in selecting foreign players among the 10 teams.

He spent up to $4.3 million, including options, signing existing foreign player William Cuevas for $1.5 million and Enmanuel de Heysus, who played for the Kiwoom Heroes, for $1 million.

LG Twins and SSG (plus 4 million dollars) followed. KIA can spend up to 3.8 million dollars. Lotte Giants invested 3.7 million dollars, NC Dinos 3.4 million dollars, and Samsung 3 million dollars.

The Doosan Bears, who replaced all three foreign players, and the Hanwha Eagles, who replaced two, spent $2.8 million each.

Kiwoom, which considers efficiency, replaced all foreign players with $2.4 million, the least among the 10 clubs.

Kiwoom also acquired Ruben Cardinez, who played as a substitute for Samsung last season, for an annual salary of 450,000 U.S. dollars, an option of 150,000 dollars, and a total of 600,000 dollars. Cardinez is expected to set a minimum ransom for a foreign player in the new season.

Rampage, performance and skills are not directly proportional to each other. Former Kiwoom player Ronnie Dawson, who recorded the minimum ransom of 600,000 dollars last year, played 95 games with a batting average of 0.330, 11 homers and 57 RBIs. Dawson was loved by many fans but failed to renew his contract due to his injury.

LG's Austin Dean, who received the Golden Glove this season, also received a mere 700,000 dollars for the 2023 season. The double guarantee amount was 500,000 dollars.

Lotte ace Barnes entered the KBO League for $610,000 in 2022.

Dustin Nippert, the highest-paid foreign player ever, played for Doosan in 2017 for $2.1 million.

There are only three foreign players who have recorded more than $2 million in ransom in history: Nippert, Hector Noesi ($2 million, 2018 KIA), and Drew Luchinski ($2 million, 2022 NC).

The highest ransom for foreign hitters was broken this time. The highest amount is $1.8 million that Rojas and Herredia receive.