A veteran starter and a slugger with 20 home runs came out. KBO holds 2nd draft privately tomorrow

The second round of the professional baseball draft, which has been likened to ‘searching for pearls in the dirt’, will be held privately at a hotel in Seoul on the 22nd.

The second draft, which was held every other year from 2011 to 2019, was abolished in 2021, and the Futures FA system was implemented in 2021 and 2022. As a result of the implementation of the Futures FA system, limitations were pointed out in which player movement was not as active as in the second draft, so it was abolished. Since then, the KBO has been discussing re-implementation by supplementing the improvements in the second draft.

The second draft, which was revived after two years, is held every other year as before, and selection is conducted in rounds 1 to 3. The number of designated protected players was reduced from 40 to 35 to facilitate player movement.

Each club can nominate its own players, training players, military pending players, and training military pending players, excluding the 35 protected players as of the end of the regular season of the nine clubs. Players in their 1st to 3rd year of joining the professional ranks, FAs in question (including FAs returning from overseas), and foreign players are excluded.

Nominations are made in the reverse order of the previous season’s performance in each round. After each club is nominated in the 1st to 3rd rounds, the 3 bottom ranked clubs are given the right to nominate 2 additional names, allowing them to nominate up to 5 people. Meanwhile, to prevent player nominations from being concentrated towards a specific club, a team can nominate up to four players.

The transfer amount is 400 million won for the 1st round, 300 million won for the 2nd round, and 200 million won for the 3rd round, and 100 million won for the 4th round and below, which can be nominated by the bottom 3 teams.

The purpose of the newly established mandatory registration regulations is to guarantee as many opportunities as possible for players who moved to the second draft by registering as an active player (first team entry) for a certain period of time in the next or following year.

During one season, registration is mandatory for more than 50 days for the first round and more than 30 days for the second round, and there is no mandatory registration regulation for rounds 3 and below. If the criteria are not met within two years of nomination, the player will return to his original club after the end of the second season, or if the original club does not want the player to return, he will be announced as a free agent. When returning to the original club, 50% of the transfer fee must be returned to the transferee club.

It is reported that Team A in the metropolitan area excluded veteran starting resources and an infielder with extensive first-team experience from the protected list, and Team B in the regional area reportedly put up for sale a pitcher with immediate power who can be used as a starter and bullpen and a slugger with 20 home runs.

Accordingly, some clubs believe that it is much more efficient to strengthen their strength through the second draft rather than recruiting external free agents. /[email protected]

[OSEN=손찬익 기자]