The average salary of a Korean professional baseball player this season is more than 150 million won, according to a new report. Ryu Hyun-jin (37), who played in the Major League Baseball (MLB) until last year and returned to his hometown team Hanwha this year, and LG catcher Park Dong-won (34) are the highest paid players with 2.5 billion won each.

The Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) announced on Nov. 11 that the average salary of its 513 players (excluding rookies and foreigners) for the 2024 season will be 159.95 million won. This is about 5.8 percent higher than last year’s average of 146.48 million won, breaking the previous record for the highest average salary. The previous highest average salary was 155.59 million won in the 2022 season.

The top two earners were Ryu Hyun-jin and Park Dong-won. 안전놀이터 Ryu signed an eight-year, 17 billion won contract with Hanwha last month after an 11-year major league career. It was the largest contract in KBO history by total value, with the first year’s salary of 2.5 billion won. It tied Lee Dae-ho of Lotte for the highest salary for a 19-year-old in the 2019 season.

Park Dong-won signed a four-year, 6.5 billion won contract with LG before last season.

Of that amount, he received a down payment of 2 billion won and a total salary of 4.5 billion won. He earned 300 million won in the first year of his contract and 2.5 billion won this year, a 733% increase. His salary was lower last year due to the salary cap system.

Among other pitchers, KT’s Ko Young-pyo (33) earned 2 billion won and Lotte’s Park Se-woong (29) followed Ryu with 1.35 billion won. Among batters, Samsung’s Koo Ja-rook (31) took second place with 2 billion won and Doosan’s Kim Jae-hwan (36) with 1.5 billion won. Among foreign players (including contracts, calculated at “1 dollar = 1100 won”), KT’s Benjamin (31) and Cuevas (34), SSG’s Heredia (33) and Doosan’s Alcantara (32) tied for the most with 1.43 billion won.

By team, last year’s Korean Series champion LG has the highest average salary. Excluding rookies and foreigners, the average salary is 190.9 million won. 바카라사이트 The total amount is 8.744 billion won, which ranks fifth behind Lotte (8.984 billion won), KT (8.860 billion won), SSG (8.829 billion won), and Hanwha (8.821 billion won), but the average salary is the highest due to the difference in the number of players. LG also has the largest average salary increase at 30.1%.