Patrick Wisdom, a third baseman, first baseman, and also an outfielder, who will wear the KIA Tigers uniform, boasts a remarkable career among foreign hitters who have ever entered the KBO League.메이저놀이터
Wisdom, born in August 1991, began his minor league career in June 2012 with the 52nd overall pick in the first round of the draft by the st. Louis Cardinals. His major league debut was in August 2018, six years later.
This means that he spent more than six seasons in the minor leagues, but he debuted late for a prospect who received a first-round pick. However, he grew slowly in the big leagues. He was traded to the Texas Rangers in December that year, and after the 2019 season, he became an FA as if he was kicked out, and signed a minor league contract with the Seattle Mariners.
However, Wisdom, who was released by Seattle in the summer of 2020, immediately signed a contract with the Chicago Cubs and was able to spend his first big league season close to full time in 2021. In other words, he became a big leaguer nine years after entering the professional league.
Wisdom, who showed off his slugging power with a batting average of 0.231, 28 homers, 61 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.823, hit a batting average of 0.207 (97 hits in 469 at-bats), 25 homers, 55 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.725, in 134 games in 2022, but his batting average fell to 0.205 in 2023 and further to 0.171 this year. He did not make good use of the advantages he showed in 2021 in that he went up and down the minor leagues every year.
Chicago Cubs Patrick Wisdom and Dansby Swanson give high fives. AP Yonhap News
It is no exaggeration to say that it is due to frequent injuries. He suffered an injury in his right wrist in June 2023 that deepened his batting slump, and this season he started the season on April 19 due to back pain in the spring training in March, and has since taken on various positions as a starting and replacement member as a utility such as third baseman, first baseman, and outfielder.
After marking a batting average of 0.171 (27 hits in 158 at-bats), eight homers, 23 RBIs and an OPS of 0.629 in 75 games, he became an FA after the designation allocation in November and joined Naranheros de Hermosillo of the Mexican League. And a month later, the club announced, "I excluded him from the roster in respect of Wisdom's wish to play in the KBO after signing a contract with the Korean club."
In an article that reported Wizdom's trip to Korea, MLBTR predicted, "Wizdom will be checked for its ability in the KBO League, which is rumored to have no power heater at all. Matt Davidson, who won the KBO League's home run king with 46 home runs this year, showed strong power and high strikeout rates during his big league days, and Wizdom, a similar style, is within the realm of the possibility of leading the Tigers' offense next year."
Matt Davidson, mentioned by the media, won the title in this category with 46 home runs for the NC Dinos this year. During his big league career between 2013 and 2022, he had 54 home runs, an OPS of 0.719 and a strikeout rate of 34.3 percent. Wizdom played in 455 games and recorded a batting average of 0.209, 88 home runs, an OPS of 0.750 and a strikeout rate of 36.7 percent.
Davidson and Wisdom both were born in 1991 and have similar careers as they mainly saw runners on first and third bases in the utoota. In other words, Wisdom has a high probability of success in the KBO.
In the history of foreign players in the KBO, there are not many cases in which players with stellar major league experience stepped on Korean soil and commanded the league. As for Wizdom, his Major League career is one of the highest in history. It remains to be seen whether he will boast as much as Davidson at the Kia Tigers next year.