“I wonder if any of today’s young players knows their predecessors fought tooth and nail to protect their interest and successfully introduced the free agent scheme. It’s been a long time since the baseball world has become a huge mess and there is no one in his right mind to advise the young ones.”
“I don’t know if the guys who took the juice of the free agent scheme will do the same for their junior players by fighting for the interest of their successors. Sorry to say it, I highly doubt it.”
“The Players Association that ostensibly represents the players in the major and minor leagues takes 1 percent of their pays. But what it does for the players is nothing, I mean nothing. It doesn’t fight for the players and takes money for the officials’ enrichment. We didn’t make the association in the first place to do just that.”
—Kang Byeong-kyu, former KBL player and first-year Players Association spokesperson
Kang Byeongk-kyu was the spokesman for the first-year KBL Players Association in 1999. (image: screenshot of Youtube)
SEOUL, Nov. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – Kang Byeong-kyu, the former Korean Baseball League pitcher who played for the OB Bears (today’s Doosan Bears) for 11 years between 1991 and 2001, made scathing remarks on the current free agency market and the young players on his Twitter account. Before his retirement, he had been the spokesman for the first-year KBL Players Association in 1999.
The Players Association was organized for the protection of the players’ interest against the despotism of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the association for baseball club owners. At the time, the Players Association experienced so many difficulties due to obstructions by individual clubs and the KBO. The organizing members including Kang had to encounter so many disadvantages.
Even after the association’s launch, the leaders had to endure difficulties as its management relied exclusively on meager membership fees. Some of the investment the association made in bid to enrich its finances went sour as the players had little experience in financial investment.
Finally the Korean Baseball League managed to introduce the free agent scheme in 2000 and five players were eligible for negotiating their compensation packages for the year. At the time, the highest-paid free agents were Lee Kang-cheol and Lee Dong-su who signed a three-year contract for 800 million won (US$723,000). The combined sum of the contract money for the five free agents was 3,055 million won. The free agent pay level has skyrocketed for 15 years since then.
This year, beginning with Choi Jeong’s signing with his current club SK Wyverns at 8.6 billion won ($7.8 million) for four years, Yoon Sung-hwan and Ahn Ji-man of the Samsung Lions succeeded in signing with the current club at 8.0 billion won and 6.5 billion won, respectively, for four years. Park Yong-taik also signed with the LG Twins for 5.0 billion won for four years.
For years, the underperformance of several free agents has caused stir among baseball fans that it’s like a “take the money and run” scheme. After the Korea Baseball Organization began instituting a not-so-binding rule forbidding individual clubs to sign with free agents for multi-year contracts in the mid-2000s, the free agent signing price has somewhat lowered. But the price has gone up at an uncontrollable level this year, partly because of an addition of a tenth club in the next season and the dearth of effective starting pitchers.
Sajik Stadium in Busan, Korea (Wikipedia)
By M.H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
