{"id":831043,"date":"2026-10-16T22:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/831043\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T22:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:06:19","slug":"kbos-ssg-landers-extend-pedro-avila","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/831043\/","title":{"rendered":"KBO’s SSG Landers Extend Pedro Avila"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right-hander Pedro Avila<\/a> joined the SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization in July after opting out of his minor-league contract with the Guardians. That could have set him up for a return to stateside ball this offseason. Instead, he\u2019ll be sticking around in the KBO. Avila has signed a two-year contract extension with the Landers, according to Daniel \u00c1lvarez-Montes of El Extrabase<\/a>. The terms of the new deal have not been reported yet.<\/p>\n

Avila, who will turn 30 in January, is no stranger to pitching overseas. He spent the 2025 season with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows of Japan\u2019s Nippon Professional Baseball, delivering a 4.04 earned run average in 15 appearances (14 starts) with a 17.8% strikeout rate. Avila\u2019s ERA was higher than the NPB average, although his 3.09 FIP was more favorable. He then signed a non-roster deal with the Guardians for 2026 but failed to make the team out of spring training. Avila re-upped on a new minor league deal and stuck around at Triple-A Columbus, struggling badly with run prevention (7.50 ERA) and free passes (11.5% walk rate) in a 60-inning sample.<\/p>\n

To his credit, Avila fared much better with the Landers. In 93 2\/3 innings over 14 starts, he posted a dominant 1.44 ERA and 63.1% ground ball rate. Among KBO pitchers with at least 80 innings, Avila had the lowest ERA, lowest HR\/9 rate (0.10), and eighth-best strikeout rate (25.5%). With his still-recent poor production in affiliated ball, he may have had to settle for a minor league deal this offseason even with the strong showing for the Landers. Thus, it makes sense for Avila to continue re-establishing himself in the KBO while locking in a higher salary than he would have been able to earn stateside.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not uncommon for fringe MLB arms to pitch overseas for a few years, then return to affiliated ball on a guaranteed deal. The Landers experienced that pretty recently with right-hander Drew Anderson<\/a>. He pitched a scattered 44 1\/3 big league innings from 2017-21 before going to NPB from 2022-23 and then the Landers in the KBO from 2024-25. Anderson had a serviceable 3.89 ERA in his first year with the Landers before lowering it to 2.25 in 30 starts in 2025. He parlayed that into a one-year, $7MM deal with Detroit this offseason and delivered a 3.67 ERA in 108 innings as a swingman. At present, Anderson stands a good chance<\/a> of sticking with the Tigers on a $10MM club option.<\/p>\n

Compared to Anderson, Avila has more of a big league track record. He pitched 146 1\/3 innings with the Padres and Guardians from 2019-24, mostly in the latter two years. In that time, Avila had a 3.51 ERA, a 23.8% strikeout rate, and an above-average 49.2% ground ball rate. If he remains effective as a starter over the next two years, he could feasibly parlay that into a $7-10MM guarantee in the Majors for the 2029 season, when he will be 32 years old.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right-hander Pedro Avila joined the SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization in July after opting out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,6540],"class_list":["post-831043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-pedro-avila"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117452864479993575","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}