Throughout baseball history, we’ve seen several players born in South Korea transition to the MLB. In total, 16 players born in South Korea have pitched in an MLB game, with the longest career in the league spanning 17 years.
Chan Ho Park was the first player from South Korea to make his MLB debut. After winning his high school team’s MVP Award for three consecutive seasons, he represented the South Korean national baseball team in 1992 and 1993. Park helped South Korea earn a silver medal in the Asian Baseball Championship in 1993. While attending Hanyang University in Seoul in 1994, he signed as an amateur free agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Park would debut in April 1994 with the Dodgers coming out of their bullpen in a game where the Dodgers were no-hit by Kent Mercker. Park would only throw in four games between 1994-95 but would transition into a starting pitcher for the 1996 season and pitch in the Dodgers rotation until 2001, where he became the first player born from South Korea to be selected to the 2001 All-Star Game. He would eventually reach free agency at the end of the 2001 season and signed a massive five-year deal worth $65 million, one of the largest contracts for a pitcher at the time.
Ultimately, injuries would hurt him during most of his Rangers career, leading them to trade him to the San Diego Padres in 2005. After the 2006 season, Park signed a minor-league deal with the New York Mets for 2007, only making one start for them. He returned to the Dodgers in 2008, finding his groove as a bullpen pitcher after serving in South Korea’s bullpen during the 2006 World Baseball Classic. He would pitch between the Phillies, Yankees, and Pirates organizations from 2009-10, where he would last pitch in the MLB, a career that spanned 17 seasons. He went on to pitch in Japan for the 2011-12 seasons and retired after the 2012 season was complete. Park collected a career 124-98 record, a 4.36 ERA in 476 games, making 287 starts, striking out 1,715 batters across 1,993 innings pitched.
Since the arrival of Chan Ho Park, 27 other South Korean-born players have reached the MLB. Another pitcher who found success pitching in the bullpen was closer Byung-Hyun Kim. He would become the second player born in South Korea to be in an All-Star Game, as he was selected in 2002 while pitching with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The season prior, he would help to lead the Diamondbacks to their first World Series victory, as he became the first Asian-born and Korean-born player to appear and win a World Series title. Kim pitched to a 54-60 record across nine MLB seasons, pitching in 394 games and making 87 starts, posting a 4.42 ERA, tallying 86 saves, while striking out 806 batters in 841 innings.
The third-longest career by a pitcher born in South Korea to thrive at the MLB level was that of former Dodger and Blue Jay Hyun-Jin Ryu. Ryu would spend the first seven seasons of his career playing with the Hannah Eagles from 2006-12. After the 2012 season, the Eagles would post him, as the Dodgers would sign him to a six-year contract for $36 million, with an option to opt-out after the fifth year. During his rookie season in 2013, he tossed a complete-game shutout, becoming the third Korean-born pitcher since Chan Ho Park and Sun-woo Kim. Later that season, he became the first South Korean to be a starting pitcher in an MLB postseason game.
Ryu would become the third pitcher born in South Korea to appear in an All-Star Game, as he was selected in 2019. He had the best year of his career in 2019, going 14-5, posting a league-leading 2.32 ERA in 29 starts, striking out 163 batters and allowing 24 walks in 182.2 innings. He would finish second in N.L. Cy Young Award voting.
He would become a free agent at season’s end, signing a four-year deal for $80 million with the Toronto Blue Jays. His first two seasons in Toronto would go well for him, as in a shortened 2020 season, he would finish third in A.L. Cy Young Award voting, but his ERA would increase dramatically in 2021. After six starts in 2022, Ryu would miss the remainder of the season due to Tommy John surgery and only made 11 starts during the 2023 season.
At the end of the year, he decided to return to Korea and pitch with the Hanwha Eagles in 2024. The contract Ryu signed was for eight years and cost about $11.6 million, the largest contract in KBO history. In his first year back, he pitched to a 10-8 record and a 3.87 ERA in 28 starts, striking out 135 batters and walking 33 across 158.1 innings of work.
Overall, tons of pitchers born in South Korea have thrived to pave their way into the MLB, as they leave their historic marks on the game. The next Korean pitcher who could find his way into the MLB is 20-year-old starting pitcher Hyun-Seok Jang, who signed with the Dodgers in August 2023. As his career progresses, it will be intriguing to see which South Korean pitchers will be able to elevate their performances in 2025 and try to make a leap into the MLB in the near future.
