{"id":317880,"date":"2025-12-01T06:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T06:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317880\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T06:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T06:16:14","slug":"kbo-leagues-samsung-lions-sign-matt-manning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317880\/","title":{"rendered":"KBO League’s Samsung Lions Sign Matt Manning"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization announced the signing of right-hander Matt Manning<\/a> to a one-year, $1MM contract.\u00a0 Manning was outrighted off the Phillies roster in September, and he elected minor league free agency earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Manning was once one of baseball\u2019s top pitching prospects, and he was a fixture of top-100 prospect rankings in the years following his selection as the ninth overall pick of the 2016 draft.\u00a0 He posted solid numbers on his way up the Tigers\u2019 minor league ladder until his MLB debut in June 2021, but the strikeout ability Manning displayed in the minors didn\u2019t translate to his work in the Show.\u00a0 Over 254 innings and 50 starts with Detroit from 2021-24, Manning posted a 4.43 ERA, 7.8% walk rate, and only a 16.4% strikeout rate.<\/p>\n

Some injuries hampered Manning during this time, but the Tigers eventually decided to move on entirely from the right-hander.\u00a0 Manning spent the entire 2025 season in the minors, first with Triple-A Toledo and then with the Phillies\u2019 Double-A affiliate in Reading after the Tigers designated Manning for assignment and traded him to Philadelphia just before the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Manning turns 28 in January, so between his relative youth and his past pedigree as a top prospect, it is a little surprising that he didn\u2019t draw interest from any MLB teams on a minor league contract.\u00a0 The fact that Manning inked his deal with the Lions relatively early in the offseason, however, perhaps suggests that he wasn\u2019t interested in waiting perhaps several more weeks to land a non-guaranteed deal, and then going through the grind of another season in the minor leagues.\u00a0 Manning is also now out of minor league options, so even if he did make a big league roster, he might\u2019ve been facing more DFAs and outrights, plus potential moves to other teams on waiver claims or trades.<\/p>\n

Rather than ride this carousel, Manning will get a $1MM payday from the Lions.\u00a0 The KBO League is generally a hitter-friendly league, yet the lesser level of competition might help Manning get his career on track.\u00a0 There have been several instances of pitchers who have used stints in the KBO to rework their pitching repertoire, post some strong numbers, and get back onto the radar of big league teams, so chances are we haven\u2019t seen the last of Manning in a Major League organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization announced the signing of right-hander Matt Manning to a one-year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,28234,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-317880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-matt-manning","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}