The Five Highest Paid Players in the KBO for 2025

The 2025 Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) season is right around the corner. Games kick off on Saturday, March 22. Each of the league’s 10 teams will face off against one another 16 times during the regular season.

The start of the 2025 KBO season signifies another year of watching young players develop before our eyes and established veterans trying to help lead their team to a Korean Series title.

Like most professional baseball leagues, the highest-performing players get paid big bucks. Sometimes, organizations pay players based on expectations rather than on what they have accomplished in the past.

World Baseball Network looks at the five players earning the highest salaries during the 2025 KBO season.

5. Choi Jeong, 3B, SSG Landers

Jeong, 38, has spent his 20-year KBO career with the Sk Wyverns/SSG Landers. He is the all-time KBO home run leader with 495. Jeong surpassed Lee Seung-youp’s KBO record of 467 home runs in April 2024.

In 2024, Jeong continued demolishing baseballs, smashing 37 home runs with a .978 OPS in 129 games with the Landers. The veteran will earn 1.7 billion won, approximately $1,176,584.62 United States dollars, in 2025. He signed a four-year, 11 billion won contract with the Landers in November 2024.

4. Three-Way Tie 

Three KBO players will earn 2 billion won, approximately $1,383,819.60 United States dollars, during the 2025 season. Those players are Hanwha Eagles starting pitcher and former Major League Baseball veteran Ryu Hyun-jin, Samsung Lions outfielder Koo Ja-wook, and KT Wiz starting pitcher Ko Young-pyo.

Ryu, 37, signed an eight-year, 17 billion won ($12.8 million) contract with the Eagles in February 2024. He pitched for 10 seasons in MLB with the Los Angeles Dodgers (2013-19) and Toronto Blue Jays (2021-23). In 2018, he became the first Korean-born pitcher to start a game in the World Series. In 2024, his first season with the Eagles since 2012, Ryu went 10-8 with a 3.87 ERA and a 1.358 WHIP.

Wook, 32, is preparing for his 11th season in the KBO. In his first 10 seasons with the Lions, Wook hit 167 home runs, including a career-high 33 in 2024. The 2015 KBO Rookie of the Year missed the entire 2024 Korean Series against the Kia Tigers due to an injury, a significant factor in the Lions losing the series four games to one. The veteran made WBN’s KBO Team of the Year in 2024 for his excellent play in right field.

Ko, 33, recently competed for South Korea in the 2024 Premier12. The eight-year KBO veteran is coming off a down season with the Wiz, posting a 4.95 ERA in 18 games. Despite the poor performance, Ko has been a reliable arm possessing excellent command for the Wiz since 2015, walking just 162 batters in 1,020 innings of work. Back in January, WBN’s Alex Ortiz named Ko an early candidate to receive the start in South Korea’s first 2026 World Baseball Classic game.

1. Kim Kwang-hyun, LHP, SSG Landers

Kim, 36, a former St. Louis Cardinal from 2020-21, will be the highest-paid player in the KBO this season, earning a salary of 3 billion won, approximately $2,077,692.60 United States dollars. According to The Korea Times, the Landers have the highest payroll in the KBO in 2025, dishing out 11.7 billion won.

Kim returned to the Landers organization in 2022 after spending the first 12 seasons of his professional career playing for the Wyverns. In MLB, he made 35 appearances, 27 in a starting role. Kim performed well, finishing with an ERA+ of 135 and a 2.97 ERA in 145.2 MLB innings. The southpaw’s career accolades in the KBO include winning the 2008 KBO MVP, the Choi Dong-won Award in 2022, given to the league’s best pitcher, and capturing Korean Series titles in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2018, and 2022.