Korean shortstop Jung-Ho Kang could cost $39 million - MLB

FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reported Saturday that Korean shortstop Jung-Ho Kang will be posted for MLB bidding Monday by his team in the Korea Baseball Organization. There are questions about Kang’s defense, but he batted .356/.459/.739 with 40 home runs and 117 RBI across 117 games this past season for the Nexen Heroes so there won’t be a lack of interest from shortstop-needy teams in Major League Baseball. Of which there are many.

Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News lays out what it might cost for a club to land Kang …

The posting fee to win exclusive negotiation rights for Kang is expected to be anywhere from $5 million to $15 million. Many at the Winter Meetings felt he was looking for a deal in the neighborhood of $24 million for three years.

The KBO still operates under the old posting system, which asks for blind posting fee bids to determine which team gets exclusive negotiating rights. Kang then tries to work out a contract with that team.

Ackert writes that the Mets are “still undecided about whether they will enter the process.”

Kang turns 28 years old next April.

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CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”