Professional baseball pitcher this year, ‘Salary King’ Park Se-woong… Samsung’s Koo Ja-wook ranks first in overall annual salary

The highest paid professional baseball player this year was Koo Ja-wook of the Samsung Lions. Park Se-woong of the Lotte Giants was named the highest-paid player in the pitching category.

The Korea Baseball Organization 토토사이트(KBO) announced on the 7th the annual salary of 506 players from 10 clubs, excluding 2023 and foreign players. According to this, the overall average annual salary came out to be 146.48 million won. This is a decrease of 6.11 million won (4%) from the total annual salary last year.

If you look at the average annual salary in professional baseball this year, the average annual salary of the Hanwha Eagles has risen by about 50% from last year. Hanwha’s average annual salary was 135.71 million won. This is 45.19 million won (49.9%) higher than last year’s average annual salary, the highest increase rate among 10 clubs.

SSG Landers (175.59 million won), the winner of the 2022 season, took first place in the team’s average annual salary for the second consecutive year. It was followed by Samsung (KRW 163.41 million), Doosan Bears (KRW 162.15 million), and kt wiz (KRW 157 million).

The average annual salary of SSG’s team this year is significantly reduced from last season (207.44 million won), which is largely influenced by veteran pitcher Kim Gwang-hyun.

Last year, SSG signed a contract with Kim Kwang-hyun and paid 8.1 billion won at once, which is 62% of the 4-year guaranteed amount (13.1 billion won) to avoid the salary cap (annual salary cap) introduced this year. Because of this, the average annual salary of SSG has risen sharply. Kim Gwang-hyeon, who receives 5 billion won for three years, has an annual salary of 1 billion won this year.

The average annual salary of the top 28 players, which is SSG’s first-team entry registration standard, was 309.57 million won, the only one out of 10 clubs that exceeded 300 million won.

SSG was followed by Samsung (266.43 million won), kt (251.54 million won), and Doosan (248.79 million won). Kiwoom Heroes (197.07 million won) and KIA Tigers (187.04 million won) stayed in the 100 million won range.

Lee Jung-hoo (Kiwoom) continued the march of the highest annual salary this year without fail. This year’s ‘salary first place’ is Koo Ja-wook (2 billion won), and among pitchers, Park Se-woong (Lotte Giants) earns the most with 1.5 billion won.

Lee Jung-hoo received 1.1 billion won, an annual salary of 350 million won (46.7%) from 750 million won last year, exceeding the previous record of 550 million won (Kim Ha-seong in 2020), the highest annual salary in the 7th year.