The Samsung Lions of Daegu, South Korea, have entered the free agent market, scooping up former Detroit Tigers prospect Matt Manning on a one-year, $1 million deal. All Manning must do now could be discover a group referred to as the Bears, and he’ll have the entire set.
Manning, 27, has a profession 4.43 ERA in 50 begins within the majors, none since 2024. However he’s extra well-known than most gamers with these credentials, on account of being Detroit’s no. 1 pitching prospect for a number of years. Being a group’s no. 1 pitching prospect will not be all the time as spectacular because it sounds; in the mean time, there are a number of groups with none minor league pitchers with a future worth grade over 45 on The Board.
However for the Tigers, within the early 2020s, being no. 1 was an enormous deal. On the 2020 listing, Manning was the no. 12 prospect in all of baseball, adopted by Casey Mize, Riley Greene, Tarik Skubal, and Isaac Paredes in Detroit’s system. In 2021, Manning fell behind the earlier yr’s prime draft choose, Spencer Torkelson, however nonetheless rated forward of Skubal and Mize, in that order.
“A big a part of the explanation Manning ranked first on final yr’s Tigers listing was as a result of he had neither Casey Mize’s damage crimson flags nor Tarik Skubal’s reduction danger,” started Eric Longenhagen and Kevin Goldstein’s 2021 writeup of Manning. What follows makes it clear why they weren’t the one evaluators who beloved the imposing younger right-hander: plus fastball and curveball, growing changeup, and higher athleticism and really feel to pitch than you’d often see out of a 6-foot-6 energy righty.
When a man like that doesn’t pan out, it’s often due to accidents. To the extent that that is true for Manning, it’s occurred in a bizarre method. Manning has gone on the shelf with forearm strains a pair occasions, however he’s by no means had Tommy John surgical procedure. He missed three months in 2022 with shoulder irritation, however he’s by no means torn a rotator cuff or blown a capsule.
All issues thought-about, Manning was pitching pretty nicely in 2023, his final full season within the majors. However he took two comebackers off the identical foot, 5 months aside, every resulting in multiple-month absences. One bone-breaking line drive and also you begin questioning the existence of God. Two in the identical season is nice proof that God is actual, and he’s pissed at you specifically.
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However this isn’t a Brady Aiken or Brendan McKay state of affairs, the place medical points prevented Manning from even getting off the bottom. He’s pitched a lot within the majors — he simply hasn’t been superb.
Manning’s common fastball velocity was within the 93-mph vary in all 4 of his partial main league seasons, however the league is throwing more durable now. Common four-seamer velocity is up 1.8 mph from his draft yr, 2016. Manning has tinkered along with his secondary pitches continuously, going from a tough slider to a sluggish sweeper. He’s added a sinker after which dumped it, dropped his arm angle, and gone away from his changeup. In 2025, he threw largely the four-seamer and two breaking balls in Triple-A, however he toyed with a high-80s cutter, as nicely.
The large downside is that Manning hasn’t been capable of get whiffs at any level within the majors. After going by means of the minors with strikeout charges within the excessive 20s, he has struck out simply 16.4% of opponents, whereas strolling 7.8%, in his main league tenure.
The final time earlier than this that Manning was a featured topic of a non-RotoGraphs article right here was in 2024, when Dan Szymborski pegged him as a bust throughout spring coaching. Dan steered that Manning be taught a splitter.
Which is fascinating, for 3 causes. First, as I discussed above: Manning did at the very least attempt to be taught a splitter and it didn’t work. Second: That Manning ought to add a splitter was additionally my first thought. His fastball and two breakers clearly aren’t getting whiffs, so he wants a pitch with arm-side motion that’ll hold opponents off his heater and assist him generate weak contact. Third: Doesn’t everybody abroad throw a splitter?
For the report, I really like that Manning goes to play within the KBO. For starters, it’s good for the soul to see the world. If I had been an athlete in a sport like basketball or baseball, the place there are thriving skilled leagues throughout the ocean, I’d make sure to spend a yr overseas at first or finish of my profession, simply to have the expertise.
And the KBO has been fertile floor for many gamers, like Manning, who’ve succeeded within the excessive minors however fallen flat within the huge leagues. It’s the legendary Quadruple-A league, and it’s accomplished hitters (Eric Thames, Darin Ruf) and pitchers (Erick Fedde, Merrill Kelly) alike a world of fine developmentally.
The American coming back from a sabbatical overseas has turn out to be a reasonably frequent free agent archetype. We’ve received three on this yr’s free agent class: Cody Ponce from the KBO, and Foster Griffin and Anthony Kay from NPB.
However Japan is the place you go to be taught a splitter, not South Korea. Since 2020, 17 pitchers born in Japan have appeared in at the very least one main league sport. That clearly consists of guys like Yu Darvish and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who throw a bit of the whole lot, however they and 13 of the 15 different Japanese pitchers in MLB threw a splitter or a forkball frequently. (That’s everybody besides Yusei Kikuchi and Shinnosuke Ogasawara.)
In contrast, I used to be unable to discover a single occasion of a Korean-born pitcher throwing even one splitter within the majors in the course of the pitch-tracking period. It’s doable that in the course of the days of PITCHf/x, some pitches had been categorised as changeups however could be thought-about splitters now. However from Hyun Jin Ryu on down, pitchers who educated within the KBO got here to the U.S. with extra American-style repertoires: fastball, changeup, curveball.
The success of sure re-imported beginning pitchers (largely Kelly, but additionally Nick Martinez and some others) has additionally made the KBO/NPB sabbatical seem like a extra frequent path again to mid-rotation competence than it really is.
The trail Manning is presumably attempting to journey — main leagues to Asia after which again to the majors, armed with a brand new killer out pitch — is definitely fairly lonely. RosterResource’s archive goes again to 2020; in six offseasons, that profession path describes simply 10 free agent beginning pitchers who had been born and educated within the Americas.
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Yellow: Appeared solely within the minor leagues
Pink: Has not pitched within the affiliated minors or main leagues since return
Kelly got here again early sufficient that he falls outdoors this pattern (each when it comes to time and by advantage of not having pitched within the majors earlier than he left for Korea), so alter your expectations accordingly. However solely about half of those pitchers might be thought-about even certified successes. Lindblom’s second journey to Korea noticed him dominate the KBO. After he returned to the majors, he was OK (good FIP, horrible ERA) within the shortened 2020 season, and a non-factor since.
Moore was godawful in his first season again within the U.S. as a starter, after which glorious in reduction for the Rangers in 2022 and three groups in 2023. Fedde was nice in excessive quantity for the White Sox and Cardinals in 2024, and replacement-level in 2025. On stability, Flexen’s been respectable. However he additionally had an enormous drop-off after a powerful first season again, and whereas he posted a 3.09 ERA in 2025, he did so with appalling peripherals after a transfer to the bullpen.
The one sturdy success since Kelly, then, has been Martinez, who has had his ups and downs, for positive, and has drifted from rotation to bullpen and again. However as a younger Texas Ranger, Martinez’s strikeout issues had been even worse than Manning’s, and he’s been one million occasions higher over the previous 4 seasons than he was throughout his first main league stint. If you happen to instructed Manning now that he’d come again to the U.S. and pitch nicely sufficient to earn a qualifying provide at any level down the road, he’d most likely take that future with out asking for every other particulars.
Is there something in these earlier success tales for him to emulate? I don’t know if there’s something particular. He doesn’t come over to the KBO as an unprecedented expertise; Fedde was an enormous deal as a prospect, whereas Moore was an even bigger deal than each Fedde and Manning put collectively. Manning will not be going to go on the market and blow everybody away on pure means.
And the pitchers who returned from the KBO and NPB with a brand new lease on life (Martinez, and Yr 1 of each Flexen and Fedde) didn’t come again as totally different pitchers. Their pitch mixes didn’t change a lot; they simply turned higher variations of themselves.
Fedde ditched an upper-70s curveball with huge horizontal motion however not a lot drop, and changed it with a sweeper that had related motion however about 5 mph extra velo. Martinez maintained his five-pitch combine: four-seamer, sinker, cutter, curveball, and changeup. However after 4 years in Japan, he was throwing barely more durable, put extra drop on his curve, and sorted out extra distinct motion patterns for his three fastballs and changeup. The change specifically left the nation in 2017 as a mid-80s legal responsibility and got here again as an upper-70s weapon.
Assuming that Manning desires to return again because the pitcher he was all the time meant to be — which he won’t; it’s doable he’ll have the time of his life in Daegu and by no means wish to depart — that’s the sort of progress he’ll be searching for. Not reinvention, however rediscovery.