"Why are promising stocks blocked from entering overseas markets?" The current Korea of Korean baseball, high school, asked back. [Korean Baseball Caught Up With Taiwan ①]

*This content was translated by AI.

The Korean national baseball team achieved half of its success in the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC).

After overcoming the pain of being eliminated in the first round for three consecutive tournaments, he advanced to the second round (the quarterfinals) for the first time in nine years since 2017, experiencing a slightly wider world. Several players have shown a glimmer of promise on the world stage. Overall, he tied for 7th place in team home runs, 9th place in team batting average (0.222), 8th place in team OPS (0.725), and 8th place in team strikeouts (41) to match the quarterfinals among 20 countries.

He also faced a cold reality. As of December 31, 2025, South Korea, ranked fourth in the world, only beat teams without even a professional league, such as the Czech Republic (15th) and Australia (11th), and lost to Japan (1st), Taiwan (2nd), which has a professional league, and the Dominican Republic (12th), which has major leaguers. In particular, the first defeat of the WBC tournament against Taiwan, which was considered a step lower by baseball fans, seems to have come as a shock.

However, even before the start, there was a view that Korea could lose to Taiwan. A high school baseball manager, A, who met at the scene before the start of the WBC, told Star News, "Taiwan is not a big deal right now. "Ten or 15 years ago, our high school teams and Taiwanese professional teams deserved to compete, but now it's not easy," he shook his head.

The main reason for this was the return of baseball study players to Taiwan 10-15 years ago as the Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Japanese Professional Baseball (NPB). It has already been pointed out on the professional stage. In the past, coach Ryu Joong-il (63) pointed out at the 2024 Premier 12 tournament, "Taiwan sends all promising players abroad, but our country is (rather) preventing them."

Taiwanese baseball prospects have long received constant attention from U.S. and Japanese teams. In particular, players from indigenous countries such as the Ami and Paiwan, who have similar physical conditions to those from Latin America, are known as lottery tickets worth scratching. In fact, more than 20-30% of Taiwanese professional baseball players are from indigenous people. Major League Scout B said, "Taiwanese indigenous people are also born with bodies. Think of a South American player. As a result, there are many prospects who throw 150 kilometers per hour as a pitcher," he hinted.

Another major league scout, C, said, "Taiwan players often challenge themselves if they can play baseball right away without paying the down payment. If successful, we approach it with the idea that we can win several times the down payment. In that sense, he is very different from Korean players. The U.S. also prefers Taiwanese prospects in that area, he stressed.

The reality of Taiwanese baseball, where coaches and salaries are not high, also played a part. As a result, many Taiwanese prospects have advanced overseas, and sometimes successful stars in the U.S. and Japan, such as Chen Wei-yin (retired) and Song Zhao (Rakuten Golden Eagles), have been produced. Of course, it is also true that most of the players returned without reaching the first-team threshold. However, it is analyzed that the players returned to Korea and gradually raised the overall level of Taiwanese professional baseball. As a result of steady progress, he beat Japan, which was led by NPB players, to the top in the 2024 Premier 12, and even beat South Korea in this tournament.

Why do Korean prospects hesitate to enter overseas markets. The biggest reason is the probability of failure. Since Park Chan-ho's advance to the LA Dodgers in 1994, quite a few prospects have taken on the challenge of the major leagues. Among them, only a few players have played in the big leagues for years, including Kim Byung-hyun, Kim Sun-woo, and Choo Shin-soo. On the other hand, starting with Ryu Hyun-jin's success, parents and prospects have also become skeptical about going straight to the Major League after his KBO debut.

However, the baseball scene probably focused a little more on the reality that young players will face when they return to Korea after failure, rather than just fear of failure. According to Article 107 (1) of the current KBO protocol, there is a clause that if "a player in high school or higher" signs a contract with a foreign professional club, he or she cannot sign with a KBO club for two years upon returning to Korea. In addition, new player alma mater who signed with foreign club was double shackled with a rule not to pay support for five years.

Ahead of this season, the target was expanded to middle school students to further prevent the outflow of promising foreign players. Some point out that broadening the scope of restrictions, rather than abolishing provisions that suppress individuals' freedom to choose their jobs, is rather against the times. Major League Scout C said, "Actually, I don't know if there's anything that's going to change a lot. "It's not like Korean players come out every year when Major League teams come up with specific contracts," he pointed out.

A high school coach D said, "I don't know why they are preventing us from entering overseas markets. If you want to learn advanced baseball, you have to release it freely. Taiwan released all of them without such restrictions. I went abroad and learned a lot in a good environment and came back, and such players also appeared in this WBC," he said. "They keep saying that promising players will be leaked, but they don't even take them unless they are the first overall players in Korea anyway. Going to the KBO League doesn't mean that all first-round players will succeed right away. It's not that there have been no successful cases in the Major League, and there's no guarantee that being nominated in the lower round won't make you a star," he stressed.

It is pointed out that the good intention of protecting prospects and their own leagues rather made Korean baseball a frog in a well. Some point out whether it is right to blame only prospects who choose overseas challenges, even though there are more than one or two areas that need to be improved for the development of Korean baseball, such as improving the level of coaches, expanding infrastructure, and maintaining the weekend league system.

High school director D said, "In Korea, there is a two-year grace period for prospects when they go abroad, and the school will also cut off subsidies for five years. Then, the coaches in the field can't help but hope that the players don't go abroad. All they say is don't improve. There is also a consensus on how to resolve these restrictions in the field," he said.

<© STARNEWS. All rights reserved. No reproduction or redistribution allowed.>

*This content was translated by AI.