Infielder Choi Ju-hwan (최주환) has moved to the Kiwoom Heroes with the first overall pick in the second round of the KBO Draft.
Choi Joo-hwan was selected by Kiwoom with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 KBO Secondary Draft held behind closed doors on Feb. 22.
Choi, who played for the Doosan Bears since 2006, became a free agent at the end of the 2020 season and signed a four-year, $4.2 billion contract with the SK Wyverns (formerly the SSG Landers).
Choi appeared in 134 games this year, batting .235 (100-for-426) with 20 home runs and 63 RBIs.
His career first-team numbers are .297 with 115 home runs and 594 RBIs in 1,268 games.
Being selected in the second round of the draft means that he was not on SSG’s list of 35 protected players.
Kiwoom head coach Ko Hyung-wook said, “Choi Joo-hwan is a versatile player. I think he will fill the gaps in our team. We are lucky to have the No. 1 overall pick this year.”
Including Choi, a total of 22 players were selected in the second round of the draft.
SSG also sent veteran outfielder Kim Kang-min, born in 1982, to the Hanwha Eagles with the 22nd pick in the fourth round, infielder Choi Hang to Lotte with the 15th pick in the third round, and pitcher Cho Sung-hoon to Kiwoom with the 21st pick in the fourth round.
However, Kim Kang-min’s future is unclear.
He was offered a coaching job with his former club SSG and was considering whether to extend his career.
Hanwha president Son Hyuk said, “When I was the pitching coach of SK, I was deeply impressed by Kim Kang-min’s skills and leadership. I thought his current form would help our outfield in the 2024 season. I will try to convince him to join our team as a player,” said Kim.
Hanwha selected LG Twins pitcher Lee Sang-kyu with the second overall pick in the first round, and the Samsung Lions selected LG pitcher Choi Sung-hoon with the third overall pick.
SSG selected only two catchers, Park Dae-on (NC Dinos) in the first round and Shin Beom-soo (KIA Tigers) in the third. They gave up their second round pick.
“Catcher was the position that needed the most reinforcement. We looked at the second round roster and saw that we had good catcher resources.” “We will soon start negotiations with catcher Kim Min-sik, who is eligible for free agency. We also plan to interview existing catchers Lee Jae-won and Lee Heung-ryun.”
The Doosan Bears also selected LG catcher Kim Ki-yeon in the first round.
KT WIZ selected Samsung veteran pitcher Woo Kyu-min with the sixth pick of the first round.
The Lotte Giants, KIA, NC, and LG gave up their first-round picks.
Kiwoom pitcher Yang Hyun went to Samsung with the eighth pick in the second round, and Hanwha infielder Oh Sun-jin went to Lotte with the ninth pick in the second round.
In terms of players drafted, LG, SSG, and NC tied for the most with four, followed by KIA (three), Doosan and Kiwoom (two each), and Samsung, Hanwha, and KT (one each). No one was selected from Lotte.
In this draft, 10 clubs selected players in the third round in reverse order of their performance this season. The bottom three teams could select up to two more players to bring their total to five, but no team exercised their fifth-round pick.
In an effort to prevent a team from getting a bunch of players in the second round, we limited the number of players a team could draft to four.
The amount of money a team must pay to a player’s former team is 400 million won in the first round, 300 million won in the second round, and 200 million won in the third round. The transfer fee for players selected in the fourth round and below was set at 100 million won.
The secondary draft was held biennially from 2011 to 2019 and was abolished in 2021, but was revived after two years as the futures (second-team) free agent system became unpopular. 토토사이트