After the Korean Professional Baseball (KBO) League 2023 season ends, Lee Jeong-hoo (25, Kiwoom Heroes), who announced that he will advance to the American Professional Baseball Major League (MLB), joins hands with Scott Boras (71), MLB’s top agent. 바카라사이트
On the 25th (Korean time), columnist John Heyman of the US <New York Post> posted on his Twitter, “Lee Jung-hoo, who is the MVP of the KBO League and will challenge the MLB after this season, has appointed Boras as his agent.”
Boras is an agent representing MLB with the nickname ‘a devil to the club and an angel to the players’. Boras is well known to domestic baseball fans as the exclusive agent for “Korean Express” Park Chan-ho (50) and “Korean Monster” Ryu Hyun-jin (36, Toronto Blue Jays). Boras was also involved in concluding a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher Shim Jun-seok (19, Deoksu High School), who recently announced his MLB challenge.
Boras has secured a number of major contracts in the MLB with the ability to identify the talent of the player in charge and his unique bargaining power. In particular, in Stove League in 2019, when Ryu Hyun-jin transferred from the Los Angeles Dodgers to Toronto, he opened the era of the first ever ‘contract total of 1 billion dollars (1.2344 trillion won)’ as an agent. At the time, Boras also received 50 million dollars (approximately 61.7 billion won) as a fee, which is about 5% of the total free agent (FA) contract signed with him.
In this Stove League, Boras also gave shortstop Sander Bohartz (31) a huge contract with the San Diego Padres for 11 years and a total of 280 million dollars (345.3 billion won).
Lee Jung-hoo had the best year last season, winning 5 batting crowns (batting average, hits, RBIs, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage) in the KBO League. After the 2023 season, Lee Jung-hoo will be eligible to advance to overseas leagues through the posting system. The Kiwoom club decided to actively help Lee Jung-hoo advance into the MLB.
The size of Lee Jung-hoo’s contract is also drawing attention. Ryu Hyun-jin has the largest contract signed with an MLB club by a Korean player who went directly from the KBO league to the MLB. Ryu Hyun-jin signed a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2013 for a total of 36 million dollars (44.4 billion won) over six years. Baseball experts predict that Lee Jung-hoo will be able to surpass Ryu Hyun-jin’s contract size.