4 players in Asia that the Chicago Cubs could target this offseason

International free agency is difficult, to say the least. The rules are different depending on where you’re coming from and what your age is and certain teams have more money to spend in international free agency than other teams.

When you add in the fact that teams have been known to create handshake deals and off-the-record payments with trainers of some of the best young players to offset some perceived missing money from a signing bonus it makes understanding this extremely important aspect of the game that much more difficult.

Some of the game’s best players from Ronald Acuna to Luis Robert to Julio Urias to Shohei Ohtani have been signed using these international signing rules, but even those three players all had different rules that governed their signings despite being contemporaries.

The rules that exist for IFA signings today can basically be summed up with the following highlights:

1. Each team will have a $4.75 million dollar bonus pool to spend unless

A. The team has a Competitive Balance Round A draft pick ($5.25 million)

B. The team has a Competitive Balance Round B draft pick ($5.75 million)

2. International Amateurs are defined as:

A. A player outside of the US, Canada or Puerto Rico

B. A player that is at least 16 years old

3. Foreign Professionals are defined as:

A. A player that is at least 25 years old

B. A player that’s played in a foreign professional league for at least six seasons

C. If a foreign professional is coming from the NPB (Japan) or the KBO (Korea) teams interested in
signing those players will not only have to pay the signing bonus to the player, but they’ll also
have to pay the posting fee to the team the player will be leaving

4. Teams that exceed their bonus pools have the highest offer that they can make to next year’s crop
of IFA talent reduced

5. Players signed from Mexico have their bonuses count only half of the value of the bonus against
the team’s pool. For example, if there is an incredible Mexican outfielder the Chicago Cubs could sign him to a $9 million dollar bonus but he’d only count $4.5 million against their bonus pool.

International amateurs are subject to the bonus pool whereas foreign professionals are not. This is so interesting because Julio Urias came from Mexico. Shohei Ohtani could have waited a couple of years and instead of signing a $2.3 million dollar bonus, he could have signed for $100s of millions of dollars.

So as we dive into some of the available international free agents available this year it’s important to remember several things:

1. There are some real stars that come from this portion of team-building.

2. Not every sixteen-year-old will become a star, regardless of their signing bonus.

3. The Cubs included some of their bonus pool in the deal that dumped Adrian Sampson to the Rays in exchange for Josh Roberson.

All that being said, who are some of the Foreign Professionals that the Cubs should be targeting this year?

Jung-hoo Lee OF KBO Kiwoom Heroes

Lee is another player that will meet the requirements to be considered a Foreign Professional prior to the 2024 season and that should result in a significant amount of money flowing his way when free agency opens.

Fangraphs points out his lineage as his father was a stud player in Korea who could steal bases and hit bombs. He took the Kobe route and was the first player in KBO history to go directly from high school to the league.

There is a certain level of concern against great velocity and a high ground ball rate (which sounds problematically reminiscent of Seiya Suzuki’s April-July with the Cubs), but he had a strikeout rate last year of 5% so it’s hard not to get excited.

There are plenty of contact-oriented corner outfielders available (and the Cubs are currently employing two of them) but any players that can enter into free agency and take some of the attention away from Cody Bellinger could be beneficial for the Cubs.

Livan Moinelo RP NPB Fukuoka Hawks

Look at the Cubs bullpen and tell me they don’t need some help. Players come from Japan and Korea every year and provide something out of the bullpen, and while there are certainly some that flounder, the number that are successful should be enough to grab the front office’s attention.

Moinelo is currently 27 and would be eligible to be signed to a free agent contract as an International Professional. You may have seen him pitch for the Cuban national team in the World Baseball Classic and he’s a lefty with a heavy heater, two breaking balls and a usable changeup.

Fangraphs had this to say about him:

Moinelo is one of the more fun to watch pitchers in NPB and has been a Cuban National Team mainstay for the last half decade, a silky smooth lefty with one of pro baseball's more beautiful deliveries… He's one of the best relievers in Japan and could slot into a contending team's backend if he ends up coming stateside.

There is no such thing as too many good bullpen arms, especially when those arms are left-handed. If Moinelo comes at a price that is reasonable he’d be a great addition to a good young bullpen that the Cubs have begun to build.

Woo-suk Go RP KBO LG Twins

Fangraphs sees Go as more of a middle-inning reliever than a late-inning reliever if he were to come to MLB. That being said, the fastball is solid and he has a curveball that flashes plus. They went on to say:

He led the KBO in saves (42) and K%-BB% (24.6%) in 2022, had a 1.48 ERA in 60 innings of work and struck out 33% of opposing hitters. This is a typical MLB power reliever in a league where those are in short supply. The quality of Go's secondaries would put him in more of a middle inning role stateside, and so his market may not be favorable enough to transition here since he's a high-leverage KBO option.

If this is a player that can rack up strikeouts in a hitter-friendly league, I’d love to see what he could do with the Cubs’ defense playing behind him. If he would accept operating in a middle-inning or Julian Merryweather-type role in the 7th inning I think it would be a solid signing for the Cubs to pursue this off-season.

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