Aaron Brooks and Ricardo Pinto to Join the KBO in 2020

The Kia Tigers of South Korea’s KBO have reached agreement on a one-year deal with soon to be 30 year old former Baltimore Oriole Aaron Brooks, while the SK Wyverns have inked former Tampa Ray Ricardo Pinto.

What I find interesting about the signings is that contract amounts are small, both well under $1 million, but both look to be fully guaranteed, which is unusual for new foreign pitchers joining the KBO.  Brooks is getting a $200,000 signing bonus and a guaranteed salary of $479,000 (so, $679,000 in total), and Pinto is getting a $100,000 signing bonus, a $450,000 guaranteed salary and a $250,000 team option for 2021, at what I would bet dollars to donuts would be a for another $800,000 salary.

Aaron Brooks’ major league record in 2019 looks a lot like Tim Adleman‘s 2017, both players’ respective age-29 seasons.  Adleman got a $1.05 million contract to pitch in the KBO in 2018, which was probably guaranteed, in light of the facts that at the time the contract amount was not as high as it reasonably could have been given Adleman’s 2017 season and that the Samsung Lions kept him around all season in spite of the fact that his performance didn’t match his relatively-high-for-the-KBO salary.

First year contracts for foreign players was limited to a cool $1M effective the 2018-2019 off-season.  It’s entirely possible that Brooks, in particular, could have negotiated a contract that paid a $300K signing bonus and an unguaranteed $700K salary, but it’s just as likely that the Tigers were willing to guarantee his full salary in order to lock him in a lower total compensation amount.  KBO attendance was down in 2019, so a bigger guarantee to lock in a lower salary would certainly make sense from the team’s perspective.

The MLB major league minimum in 2020 will be $563,500 in 2020, but neither Brooks nor Pinto had any real shot of getting a major league (i.e., guaranteed) contract.  Aaron Brooks likely would have earned $575,000 for major league service time in 2020, but after an age-29 season in which he posted a 5.65 ERA and corresponding ratios, it was certainly uncertain that Brooks would have spent even half of the 2020 season on a major league roster.  Better to go to South Korea for a guaranteed $679,000, with a big chunk up front.

Despite his much more limited MLB success, Pinto commanded a bigger guarantee because he has a lot more leverage entering his age 26 season.  His chances of spending a big chunk of the 2020 season on a major league roster are probably better than Brooks’.  Also, the Wyverns have apparently locked him into a second KBO season for what would be a total commitment of $1.35M (at least based on the way second year options almost always work for KBO foreigners).  The Wyverns have been quoted by Yonhap as looking at Pinto as a player they can develop into a mult-year star, although KBO teams almost always treat their foreign players as win-now, immediate-performance.

Pinto is expected to replace Henry Sosa, which is a shame, because Sosa proved he was still a KBO starter after spending the first half of the season in Taiwan’s CPBL.  That’s baseball, and it could mean a repeat performance by Sosa in the CPBL in 2020.

Brooks will replace either Jacob Turner or Joe Wieland, assuming the Tigers don’t decide to replace them both.  I have to assume that Turner is the one who just lost his job, but Wieland shouldn’t be laying out money for living expenses in South Korea in 2020 either.

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