Eric Thames misses Korea. And why not?

The Brewers’ slugger spent three years in the Korean Baseball Organization, won the league MVP in 2015, and made the playoffs every season. He misses the region so much that he plans to visit during the offseason.

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On the other hand, he’s finally fulfilling the big-league dreams that seemed out of reach before he went to Korea, contributing to a Brewers team battling for a playoff spot. Entering play Wednesday, Thames has hit .244/.362/.517 with 25 home runs, proving to be a bargain for his three-year, $16 million contract.

But while Thames has enjoyed his success in MLB, his mind frequently returns to his adoptive land. He still cherishes Korean culture, especially the food, which means he’s mostly out of luck in Milwaukee.

“I have a half-Korean friend who owns a steakhouse restaurant,” Thames told Sporting News. “He told me that you have to go to Chicago to find some good Korean food. But in Milwaukee, well, it’s good but nothing will be like actually being in Korea.”

Thames still keeps up with friends he made in Korea. He checks his KakaoTalk (a Korean messaging app) to communicate with his former NC Dinos teammates and front office members, and looks at social media to read comments from his Korean fans.

“If I’m in a slump, the fans will write me “cheer up” and “fighting,” that kind of stuff,” he said.

Thames’ time in the KBO also exposed him to the high level of talent found in the league, and he knows there are at least a few players who could have futures in the big leagues.

Who does he think could be the next big KBO transplants? Here are a few players to follow:

3B Jeong Choi (SK Wyverns)

When mentioning Choi, Thames referred to the Wyverns third baseman as “the home run guy.”

“I feel like he has a great talent,” Thames said. “He can come over here and play.”

Choi indeed has talents. In his age-30 season, Choi has hit for a .307/.427/.675 slash line with 37 home runs in 324 at-bats, putting himself on a pace for a 50-homer season. Choi has been steady throughout his KBO career, owning a career .293/.389/.520 slash line and earning the Golden Glove award at third base four times (2011, 2012, 2013, 2016). He received some attention in the U.S. media back in 2014 when Jon Heyman wrote about Choi at CBS Sports, dubbing him the “Korean David Wright.”

However, Choi ended up staying with the SK Wyverns, inking a four-year deal that spans ends after 2018.

It is unclear whether Choi will look to go to the majors after his age-31 season. His numbers, however, are hard to ignore. If Choi follows this season up with a strong 2018, he could be a potential target for overseas teams in free agency.

LHP Kwang-Hyun Kim (SK Wyverns)

People who have followed the offseason for the past few years may be familiar with Kim. Back in winter 2014, Kim made a push to come to the big leagues. The Padres won the bidding, but they failed to reach to an agreement. Thames said Kim is worth of another look by MLB clubs.

“(Kim) could do well,” Thames said. “Hard-throwing lefties are always a premium in the big leagues.”

Kim does profile has a power pitcher in the KBO — for the league, he has an above-average fastball and a swing-and-miss slider. However, the heater grades out as average in MLB, but scouts feel that his breaking ball will work well against MLB hitters. The popular belief is that, in MLB, Kim would be better served as a reliever with his two-pitch combo. A more detailed writeup on Kim from the Beyond the Box Score can be found here.

If Kim does come stateside, it won’t be anytime soon. In this past offseason, he re-signed with the SK Wyverns for four years and immediately underwent Tommy John surgery. He is set to be back for the 2018 season but will remain in Korea for at least three more seasons. When his contract is over, Kim will be 32 years old. Given on his injury history, command issues and age, it is less likely that he will be a target for MLB clubs by then.

OF Ah-Seop Son (Lotte Giants)

Just like Kim, Son once made an appeal to MLB clubs (in 2015), but failed to garner a bid and stayed with the Lotte Giants. Facing free agency this offseason, Son is putting together another strong season by hitting .335/.420/.506 with 13 home runs.

“I feel like he has the bat speed and the athleticism to do pretty well over here,” Thames said.

Son has hit over .300 in every season since 2010 and has made name for himself for being an undersized-but-gritty-type player. That being said, the biggest knock against him is his size. He’s listed at 5-7 and weighs 185 pounds. It will be interesting to see how MLB scouts view him this fall and offseason.

OF Seong-Beom Na (NC Dinos)

Thames is familiar with Na, having been teammates with him in the NC Dinos from 2014 to 2016. Known for his tools and projectable frame as a prospect, Na bloomed as an All-Star caliber player in 2014, during Thames’ first season with the Dinos.

“I felt like he was ready three or four years ago,” Thames said. “He has the talent, arm strength, bat speed and foot speed.”

Sporting News previously wrote about Na. He is considered to have the highest ceiling among the four players who Thames named. As of Aug. 7, Na was having a marvelous season — .376/.438/.636 (175.9 wRC+) with 18 home runs in 330 ABs. He is projected to be eligible for posting after the 2019 season, so there’s more time for him to increase his stock in the KBO.

A major adjustment

Skillsets translating from one league to another is one thing. But what the analytics don’t cover is how a player will actually make the adjustment. There is no metric to measure how quickly a player can adapt to a different league, or if he ever will.

Thames is no stranger to adjustments. Having adjusted from the majors/minors to Korea, then back to MLB, he said no matter how familiar a player is with a country or a league, having to adjust in MLB is a challenge.

“People don’t realize how different KBO is to the major leagues. I mean, literally the best players in the world are in (MLB). You have to be able to adjust, adapt and learn — kinda change your swing a little bit, tinker because the strike zone is a little bigger, the guys throw harder, better offspeeds, et cetera. I’m still making the adjustments, and it’s tough.”

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Thames sympathizes with other former KBO players who are now in the majors, but not having the same success he’s had. One of them is Jae-Gyun Hwang, who has been back and forth between the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats and the Giants this season.

Hwang showed a lot of commitment and passion to get stateside for a shot to play in MLB. Like Son, he was posted after the 2015 season by the Lotte Giants but failed to draw a bid. After the 2016 season, as a free agent, Hwang held an open showcase and signed a split contract with the Giants while rejecting lucrative offers from the KBO teams. His Triple-A showing earned Hwang a promotion to MLB in late June, but he has hit only .154/.228/.231 in 18 games. Thames feels that if the Giants give more looks to Hwang, he will eventually reward the organization.

“I feel like if he got an enough amount of at-bats, he’d be a great player,” Thames said. “Even seeing him back (with the) Lotte Giants, I knew that he had the ability to play in MLB.”

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Another former KBO player who has yet to unveil his potential stateside is ByungHo Park, who signed a four-year, $12 million deal with the Twins before the 2016 season. After a strong start to his big-league career, Park’s nagging wrist issues affected the performance, dropping the slash line to .191/.275/.409 before getting demoted to Triple-A.

Park had a lights-out spring training performance in 2017 (.353/.414/.745 with six home runs) but the team decided not to include him on the big-league roster. After a slow start and an injury to the season in the Triple-A, Park has hit .311/.370/.522 with five home runs in 25 games since the All-Star break.

“It’s another tough situation,” Thames said. “Right now, in Minnesota, with what guys like (Miguel) Sano and other players are doing, there’s a logjam. (Park) has been working on his approach, though. If he keeps doing that and performing, he will get a call.”

Thames took an unconventional way to become the MLB regular he is now. While we don’t know whether he would be a regular without having taken the chance to play in Korea, there’s a lot of evidence that instructions and playing time over there have helped in his development. He encourages other players to do the same and work themselves to be better players.

“Some people assume that if you go to the KBO, they are like, ‘You don’t have enough talent’ or whatever,” Thames said. “But no — a lot of it is timing. Like, if you’re in an organization where you’re buried but you want to play someplace else just like Korea, you can showcase your talent there and come back — come back and do your best to find an organization that pushes you a little bit.”

Thanks to Thames and other former KBO players who have advanced to MLB — Jung-Ho Kang, Seung-Hwan Oh, Hyun Soo Kim, for instance — there is higher interest in KBO talents than ever. It takes a lot of factors to click for one to succeed overseas, whether it be MLB or the KBO.

“If you learn and make adjustments,” Thames said, “it’s possible.”