The SSG Landers have re-signed a pair of former MLB players for the 2026 KBO season: right-hander Mitch White and outfielder Guillermo Heredia. White joined the Landers last year, while Heredia has been on the team since the 2023 campaign. Dan Kurtz of MyKBO relayed the news in English earlier today. White is represented by Apex Baseball, while Heredia is represented by PRIME.
White, 31, appeared in 71 games over five MLB seasons, pitching for the Dodgers, Blue Jays, Giants, and Brewers. While he bounced between the bullpen and the rotation in MLB and Triple-A, he took on a full-time starting role in his first KBO season. Averaging 5 2/3 innings per start, he pitched to a 2.87 ERA and 3.44 FIP, striking out 24.4% of batters he faced and walking just 7.8%. For context, the league-average ERA in the KBO this past season was 4.31, while the league-average strikeout and walk rates were 19.7% and 9.1%, respectively. White also induced groundballs on 54% of balls in plays and limited his opponents to only nine home runs on the season.
Heredia, soon to be 35, has been one of the KBO’s premier contact hitters over the past three years. He led the league in batting average in 2024 and ’25 (min. 400 PA) and ranked fifth in ’23. While he isn’t known for his power, he’s a safe bet for double-digit home runs, and his overall offensive output (per wRC+) has been at least 34% better than league average in all three of his seasons with the Landers. Prior to his KBO career, the veteran outfielder played in seven MLB seasons, bouncing between the Mariners, Rays, Pirates, Mets, and Braves.
White and Heredia join new signings Drew VerHagen and Shota Takeda as the four foreign players on the Landers’ 2026 roster. VerHagen, a veteran of both MLB and NPB, signed with the team earlier this month, essentially replacing fellow right-hander Drew Anderson. Himself a former MLB and NPB pitcher, Anderson parlayed an excellent 2025 campaign with the Landers into a one-year, $7MM guarantee from the Detroit Tigers. Takeda, another right-handed pitcher, spent the first 14 years of his professional career with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks organization, though Tommy John surgery kept him from pitching for the NPB club in 2024 or ’25.
