SSG Landers, a professional baseball team, has announced a free agent contract with Choi Jung (37), the 20-year old “One Club Man” who holds the record for most career home runs (495). The announcement is unprecedented in the free agency market.

SSG said, “We met with Choi Jung’s side on the afternoon of the 4th and spoke positively. The player wants to proceed with a free agent contract, so we will announce it after signing on the 6th, when the free agency market opens. With the verbal agreement in effect, SSG also posted the same thing on the club’s official SNS, saying, ‘Choi Jung’s FA contract announcement’ to inform fans. The news reassured SSG fans who were worried about Choi’s departure.

The KBO released the list of 30 players eligible for free agency in 2025 on April 2, and players had four days to apply for approval to exercise their free agency rights. The KBO will announce players who have exercised their free agency rights on the fifth as free agent-approved players, and they can officially negotiate and sign with any club on the sixth. SSG cracked down on “house rabbits” by announcing Choi Jung’s contract on the first day of free agency.

Initially,

SSG aimed to finalize a multi-year contract with Choi before the free agency market opened. With Choi’s age-defying performance this year, interest in the player has been low since the end of the season. The fact that Choi is a C-grade player with no compensated players meant that the team only had to pay him 1.5 billion won, or 150 percent of his current salary (1 billion won), to sign him.

SSG, which suffered a huge backlash last winter when it failed to place ’23 One Clubman’ Kim Kang-min on the protected list in the second round of the draft, leading to his transfer to Hanwha, could not afford to make the same mistake twice. 파워볼사이트 They went all out to get Choi Jung and are close to finalizing a deal worth at least 10 billion won, only to push back the ‘official’ date to six days to sign him to a free agent contract instead of a non-free agent multi-year deal. When Choi applied for free agency, it is believed that he made a contract announcement in advance in consideration of his fans.

The size of the contract does not seem to be different whether it is a non-free agent multi-year contract or a free agent contract. However, Choi wanted to sign a free agent contract because of the type of contract. According to KBO rules, only rookies and free agents can receive signing bonuses. Non-FA multi-year contracts do not receive a signing bonus, but the total amount of salary and options divided by the number of years.

Players prefer the signing bonus because it allows them to get their money sooner, even if the contract total is the same.

While salaries are paid over 10 months, from February to November, the signing bonus is a lump sum. According to Article 7 of the KBO Baseball Player Contract, the club pays the contract in two installments, one within 30 days after the player’s contract is approved and the other within 30 days after the league ends.

From a club’s point of view, it’s not a bad idea to hold onto the best free agents. If SSG signs an outside Class A or B free agent, Choi will automatically become a protected player. If it was a non-FA multi-year contract, he would have to be included on the protected player list, but by automatically removing Choi as a free agent, the team can protect one more player. Of course, this is only possible if SSG signs an outside free agent.

Beyond the practicalities, there is also a symbolic aspect.

So far, only five players in the KBO have signed three pure free agent contracts, excluding non-free agent multi-year deals: Jo In-sung, Jung Sung-hoon, Lee Jin-young, Park Yong-taek, and Kang Min-ho. Choi will surpass Kang Min-ho, who signed a four-year, 3.6 billion won contract with Samsung in December 2021, to become the highest-paid player in history with his third free agency contract. It will likely be a record that no one else will ever surpass.

Choi re-signed with SK in his first free agency in November 2014 for four years and 8.6 billion won, the highest amount at the time. In the second free agency in December 2018, he stayed with SK for six years and 10.6 billion won. The six-year deal broke the mold of four-year contracts at the time and made headlines. Choi, who has earned 19.2 billion won in two free agency deals, is expected to surpass Doosan’s Yang Yang-ji (who earned 27.7 billion won in two deals) as the all-time top free agent with his third free agency contract, which will be announced on June 6.