Dodgers Promoting Top International Prospect to Single-A
A former under-the-radar international signing is making a lot of noise down on the farm.
Hyun-Seok Jang is slated to make his Single-A debut for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes on Thursday after having a successful season in the Arizona Complex League.
Jang went 1-2 with an 8.19 earned run average but those numbers don’t tell the entire story. He recorded 49 strikeouts and only walked 19 across 24.1 innings. Opponents hit just .189 against him during his 13 appearances which included 10 starts.
The Los Angeles Dodgers discovered Jang when he was 19. He had just finished high school in Korea and was widely expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the Korean Baseball Organization Draft.
Instead of staying home and developing in the KBO, Jang and the Dodgers agreed on a minor league deal with a $900,000 signing bonus in Aug. 2023.
Scouts raved about the teenager who came to the organization standing around 6-foot-3 with a four-seam fastball clocked as high as 97 mph. Jang’s arsenal also included a slider, curveball, changeup, and sweeper.
“He would’ve started in the KBO, at the top level, right away,” said Daniel Kim, an independent South Korean journalist who has contributed to ESPN’s coverage of the nation’s domestic league. “If you’re a top one, two, three [high school] player, you get a lot of recognition.”
The Dodgers are hoping Jang will continue to develop into the next great Korean pitcher and follow in the footsteps of other Dodger greats such as Chan Ho Park and Hyun-Jin Ryu.
“We see a future with top-of-the-rotation starter stuff,” Rob Hill, the Dodgers’ director of minor league pitching, told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s just a matter of getting there and doing it. He can do so much with the ball. He’s so adept at trying to improve. I think the sky’s the limit.”
Jang arrived in the United States speaking very little English but wasn’t afraid of the challenge that was ahead. He chose Major League Baseball because it was the best path for him.
“It was a tough decision for me because I dreamed of pitching both in the KBO and MLB,” Jang said in a statement last August, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. “But ultimately, I wanted to challenge myself in the best league in the world and decided to take a crack at MLB.”
Photo Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
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