May 28: The Guardians announced that Barria’s contract has officially been sold to the Eagles. Hanwha announced over the weekend that they’ve released former MLB righty Felix Pena (h/t to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO). KBO teams are limited to carrying two foreign-born pitchers on their rosters, so the Eagles had to move on from either Pena or Ricardo Sanchez to add Barria. Cutting Pena was the straightforward call, as he has struggled to a 6.27 ERA over nine starts. (Sanchez has a solid 3.35 mark in his nine appearances). Pena spent parts of three seasons with Hanwha, posting a sub-4.00 mark between 2022-23 before this year’s struggles.
May 25: Right-hander Jaime Barria is finalizing a deal with a team in the Korea Baseball Organization, according to MLBTR’s Steve Adams. It’s not yet clear which club Barria is working out a deal with. Barria is currently in the Guardians organization on a minor league deal but it’s common for teams to release players in order to pursue overseas opportunities, often in exchange for cash considerations from the player’s new club. Kim Geun-han of MK Sports (Korean language link) reports today that Barria is poised to sign with the Hanwha Eagles.
Barria, 27, signed with the Angels as an international free agent out of Panama and made his big league debut with the club back in 2018 during his age-21 season. The righty enjoyed a strong rookie campaign with a 3.41 ERA and 4.58 FIP across 26 starts for the Halos that year, although he suffered a sophomore slump the following season as he pitched to a 6.42 ERA in 19 appearances (13 starts) while swinging between the bullpen and rotation during the 2019 campaign. Barria would stay in that swing role for the next two seasons, pitching to roughly average results (106 ERA+) across 89 innings of work during that time.
The 2022 season saw Barria pitch in something closer to a pure relief role, with just one start and five outings where he threw more than fifty pitches. It was perhaps the best season of his career, as he posted an excellent 2.61 ERA that was 54% better than league average by measure of ERA+ to go along with a 4.11 xERA and 4.13 SIERA, all of which were career best figures for the righty. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse for Barria last year as his home run rate spiked, leaving him with a 5.68 ERA and 6.07 FIP in 82 1/3 innings of work across 34 appearances, six of which were starts.
After that difficult 2023 campaign, Barria was outrighted off the Angels roster and elected free agency, leading him to his aforementioned minor league pact with the Guardians. He’s remained in multi-inning relief during his time at Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate in Columbus, and while his 4.81 ERA in 13 appearances is nothing to write home about he’s also shown a surprising proclivity for strikeouts this year, punching out batters at a 28.1% clip across his 24 1/3 innings of work.
It’s possible that uptick in strikeout rate is what caught the attention of a team overseas, and Barria now figures to head to Korea in hopes of re-establishing himself as a potential big league option. KBO teams are only allowed to carry a maximum of two foreign-born pitchers on their rosters, meaning that if Barria’s new team has already reached that limit they’ll have to part ways with another arm to make room for the righty.
An amalgamation of Chris Johnson and Mike Maddux? Thats just Appalachia.
Hitters go to Asia to learn to hit the breaking ball.
Pitchers go there to work on secondary pitches.
Success gets them another look. Otherwise, sayonara.
Wrong country, man. He’s not going to Japan.
Also, his fastball is kind of the problem. His slider is definitely plus, but god knows why Doug White had everyone throw their sinkers up but everyone did the one season he was in charge and well, it didn’t go well. Should have kept him and non-tendered Suarez instead.
Good luck in Korea.
Must be cool to get to experience another country and culture while playing baseball.
Barria is probably replacing former Angels swingman Felix Peña in the Hanwha Eagles Rotation.
Ricardo Sanchez is also an ex angel
How does it work for a player to switch leagues? Can they refuse going to Korea or Japan if they want?
they sign a contract with the foreign team. just like any MLB team. ecept know they get to play in a better country
A lot of minor league deals for former big leaguers have foreign league clauses built into them. The Eagles, in this case, presumably approached both the Guardians and Barria to gauge his level of interest. At that point, they negotiated a contract with Barria and likely a release fee with the Guards (hence his contract being “sold” to the Eagles).
Barria is surely getting more money than he was making in Triple-A, plus the opportunity to showcase himself for another one-year deal with the Eagles next season (which would come with seven-figure earning power, in all likelihood). And the Guardians get some modest financial compensation for letting him go.