LG Twins exceed salary cap for the first time

Even wealthy teams can sometimes find themselves in this situation.

This year, the professional baseball team LG Twins has become the first in history to pay into the baseball development fund after exceeding the total salary cap for the year.

The total salary cap for professional baseball this year is 11.4 billion won, which is the average of the combined salaries of the top 40 players from each team in 2021 and 2022.

LG's total for the top 40 players this season amounts to 13.85 billion won, exceeding the salary cap by approximately 2.4 billion won.

While the other nine teams did not exceed the cap, LG has become the first team to violate the salary cap since the system was introduced.

According to the regulation that states 50% of the excess amount must be paid as a competitive balance tax for the first violation, LG will need to pay about 1.2 billion won into the baseball development fund.

If they exceed the cap for two consecutive years until next year, they will face penalties including a 100% payment of the excess amount and a drop of nine places in the first-round selection order of the rookie draft.