Saturday, April 7, 2012

Off Season Roundup

Our off-season hibernation is over. Simon is back and ready to rock. I'm slightly less busy than I was during the off-season. It's amazing to me that the off-season is busier for fantasy baseball websites than the regular season is. There's more of an emphasis on draft preparation than in-season moves. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

This KBO off-season was bizarre. First, we had two LG Twins pitchers(Kim Seong-hyeon and Park Hyun-joon) indicted in a match fixing scandal, suspended and released. These two will likely never pitch in the KBO again.

We also had four Korean baseball Legends make their return to Korea. Park Chan-ho will finally make his debut for the Hanhwa Eagles and Kim Tae-gyun and Lee Seung-yeop will return to the Eagles and Samsung Lions. Kim Byung-hyun will make his return to competitive baseball with the Nexen Heroes.

Lee Dae-ho got tired of being woefully underpaid and took a big money offer to play for the Orix Buffaloes of the NPB.

The Baltimore Orioles have been banned from scouting in Korea over the controversy surrounding the signing of 17-year old pitcher Lee Seong-min. Baltimore forgot to/didn't ask for permission to sign Lee and the KBO was very, very upset with them.

Finally, in the saddest story of the off-season, a rookie referred to in press releases only as "Lee" died when he became intoxicated and fell down a flight of stairs in early January.

It's been a long, cold off-season and it's nice to have the KBO back in my life. It's been too long.

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