Baseball Player Yasiel Puig from Cincinnati Reds reacts to a called strike by umpire Larry Vanover during the ninth inning of the team’s baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 30, 2019. AP-Yonhap
The Kiwoom Heroes have reunited with former major league All-Star outfielder Yasiel Puig.
The Heroes announced Tuesday that they have signed Puig to a one-year deal worth $1 million. The Cuban outfielder, the 2014 National League All-Star with the Los Angeles Dodgers, first played for the Heroes in 2022.
The Puig reacquisition was part of a wholesale change for the Heroes with their foreign player contingent, as they also announced signings of outfielder Ruben Cardenas and pitcher Kenny Rosenberg.
Puig, 33, is the main attraction of the trio. He burst onto the scene with the Dodgers in 2013, finishing second in the Rookie of the Year voting after launching 19 home runs and stealing 11 bases in 104 games. He played in his first and the only All-Star Game the following year.
Despite his prodigious raw talent, Puig was also seen as a head case with questionable work ethic. After six seasons with the Dodgers, Puig also played for the Cincinnati Reds and the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) in 2018 and 2019.
He spent the next couple of years in the Dominican Republic and Mexico before taking his talent to Korea. In 126 games with the Heroes in 2022, Puig batted .277/.367/.474 with 21 home runs and 73 RBIs, and helped take the Heroes to the Korean Series, where they fell to the SSG Landers in six games.
Puig found himself in some legal trouble over illegal gambling charges after that season, as the Heroes chose not to bring him back. However, the Heroes insisted Tuesday that they had confirmed “through multiple channels” that there are no legal issues preventing Puig from playing in the KBO, noting that Puig continued his playing career in other leagues after leaving the KBO two years ago.
Puig will have a chance to go up against his former Dodgers teammate and current Hanwha Eagles ace Ryu Hyun-jin. They were both major league rookies in 2013, with Ryu finishing fourth in the voting for the top rookie honor.
Cardenas, a Los Angeles native, will have a second tour of duty in the KBO on a one-year, $600,000 contract, after a seven-game stint with the Samsung Lions this past summer that ended with an oblique injury.
Cardenas had two homers and five RBIs in those seven games, and the Lions didn’t wait around for him to recover as they replaced him with Lewin Diaz.
Lions fans criticized Cardenas for taking the easy money —he’d signed for $477,000 to replace David MacKinnon — for not being willing to play hurt. The Heroes said Cardenas, 27, is fully healthy and they think highly of his work ethic.
Rosenberg, 29, comes to the KBO with 17 major league games under his belt, all of them with the Los Angeles Angels in his home state of California. The left-hander has a 2-3 career record with a 4.66 ERA.
He split the 2024 season in the bigs and Triple-A. In the minors this year, Rosenberg went 9-7 in 21 starts with a 4.21 ERA.
With the Angels this year, Rosenberg threw four-seam fastballs, changeups, cutters and curveballs, averaging 90.2 miles per hour with the four-seamer. He agreed to an $800,000 deal with the Heroes.
Teams in Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) can have a maximum three foreign players, with no more than two pitchers. Teams typically carry two pitchers and one position player, but the Heroes will buck that trend with Puig and Cardenas in their lineup and Rosenberg in their rotation.
“We had several discussions on how we will build our foreign player roster, and we decided we needed to address our lack of offensive punch,” said the Heroes, who ranked last in team batting average, runs scored, home runs, hits, on-base percentage and slugging percentage in 2024. “Puig and Cardenas will add power to our lineup and give us a much different look. If our Korean hitters can chip in, we will be a powerful offensive team. Their ability to hit for power and drive in runs will be massive.”
The Heroes added that having just one foreign pitcher will give more Korean pitchers an opportunity to make an impression and win an everyday job in the KBO.
Last year, the Heroes had Enmanuel De Jesus and Ariel Jurado leading their rotation, with Ronnie Dawson in the lineup before he injured his knee in August. The Heroes played out the rest of the season without Dawson’s replacement. (Yonhap)
