Some KBO history, a breakdown of the Fall League, and a preview of the Coast’s opponents
by Nick Clementi
As the PBL superteam playing as the Long Beach Coast prepares for the start of their KBO fall league journey, let's take a look at the backstory of this event.
The Ulsan-KBO Fall League will feature five KBO clubs (LG Twins, NC Dinos, Lotte Giants, Samsung Lions, and Kia Tigers), two KBO Futures League clubs with the Goyang Heroes (farm team of the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes) and Ulsan Whales (no affiliation), a team of Korean indy ball All-Stars, the now-independent Melbourne Aces (formerly of the Australian Baseball League), a Japanese-based indy ball team, the China Baseball League’s Jiangsu Huge Horses, and the Long Beach Coast (more on the roster construction later). This will be the first time an American team has participated in this league.
The schedule runs from October 15th to October 31st, and games will take place at both Gijang-Hyundai Motors Dream Ballpark in Busan as well as Ulsan Munsu Baseball Stadium. Read our interview with Ballers VP Casey Pratt about how the trip came about.
The league’s existence shares similar values to the Pioneer League, focusing on the development of young players. The KBO teams will be made up of recently drafted players along with prospects from their respective farm systems. Last year’s MVP of the Fall League was Shin Jae-In of the NC Dinos organization, who at the time had yet to make his KBO debut after being drafted second overall. The aforementioned NC Dinos took down the Lotte Giants in last year’s championship in what was actually a rematch of the 2024 KBO Fall League championship; Lotte came out on top in the inaugural season.
In this third year, the league went from nine teams in 2024 to eleven teams last year to twelve teams this season. The first edition featured teams like the NPB’s Softbank Hawks and a Cuban national team that did not participate last season.
For the sake of our PBL readers, the Long Beach Coast roster can be broken into segments:
Pre-2026 Oakland Ballers
RHP James Colyer
LHP Luke Short
RHP Adam Bogosian
RHP Conner Richardson
2026 Oakland Ballers
SS Tremayne Cobb Jr
1B Jeter Ybarra
OF/2B Esai Santos
RHP Ren Abe-Arias
OF Logan Johnstone
2026 Long Beach Coast
1B Cuba Bess
2B Jacob Jablonski
3B Benjamin Rosengard
OF/1B Cooper Vest
RHP Steven Odorica
RHP Nick Bautista
RHP Ryan Faulks
RHP Nathan Hemmerling
RHP Zach Voelker
LHP Brett Wozniak
LHP Jaxon Byrd
C Thomas McCaffrey
OF Robert Pitts
2026 Yuba-Sutter Freebirds
C Max Ortega
1B Andrew Kirchner
RHP Rane Pfeifer
They will be managed by Ballers VP Don Wakamatsu, with his coaching staff including Jerome Williams, John McLaren, and Andrew Crapo. Wakamatsu talked about leading the team here.
Yesterday’s Matchup, 6-6 tie with Ulsan Whales: The Coast’s first matchup took place last night at midnight PST versus the Ulsan Whales in Ulsan. The Whales are Korea’s first ever citizen-owned professional baseball team (same general idea as the Green Bay Packers) and are part of the KBO Futures League despite not having a direct affiliation to a KBO club. This past season was their first, and they won the Southern League championship and remarkably finished runners-up overall for the Futures title. Like the Ballers, they had tryouts, recruited foreign players, and saw immediate local fan support.
The Coast’s Cuba Bess hit a three-run homer to pace the Coast. LBC had six runs on six hits with two errors; Ulsan had six runs on ten hits with no errors.
Today’s Matchup, Friday 6pm Pacific with Japan Select: All-Stars vs. All-Stars! The PBL squad meets Japan’s team drawn from the best of their independent leagues. Yesterday, they lost their opening game 10-8 to the Jiangsu Huge Horses from China. Select’s Yamamoto Tomoaki hit the tournament's first home run in that game.
Here are the PST times of the Coast’s 11 regular season games. The KBO has just released their schedule of the streamed games at Ulsan stadium on their YouTube page and none of the Coast games currently feature, though this is subject to change. The Melbourne Aces also will stream some or most of their games on their own channel, so that matchup may also be a streaming possibility.
Fri Oct 16, 12:00am — vs Ulsan Whales (Munsu), 6-6 tie
Fri Oct 16, 6:00pm — vs Japan Select (Gijang)
Sat Oct 17, 10:00pm — vs NC Dinos (Gijang)
Mon Oct 19, 12:00am — vs KIA Tigers (Munsu)
Tue Oct 20, 6:00pm — vs Goyang Heroes (Munsu)
Thu Oct 22, 12:00am — vs Samsung Lions (Gijang)
Thu Oct 22, 6:00pm — vs LG Twins (Gijang)
Fri Oct 23, 10:00pm — vs Independent All-Stars (Gijang)
Sun Oct 25, 6:00pm — vs Melbourne Aces (Gijang)
Mon Oct 26, 10:00pm — vs Lotte Giants (Gijang)
Tue Oct 27, 9:00pm — vs Jiangsu Horses (Gijang)
Nick Clementi is an Oakland native and lifelong Oakland baseball fan. He enjoys long walks on the beach and summer nights at Raimondi Park. He’s a Scrappy enthusiast who doesn't believe in sacrifice bunts. Sports content moderator by day, Ballers beat writer by night. Find him on Instagram and Twitter.
with additional reporting from Joe Horton.
