The Long Beach Coast won some hardware in year one after all.
After becoming the first-ever American team to receive an invitation to play in the Korean Baseball Organization’s (KBO) Fall League, the Coast doubled down by winning it all, defeating the Ulsan Whales 6-2 in the championship game on Oct. 31. Long Beach went unscathed during their tournament run, finishing with 10 wins and two ties.
The Ulsan-KBO Fall League is an October showcase league that typically consists of developmental KBO players, newly draft-eligible players, South Korea’s independent baseball league players and teams from Japan, China and Australia.
The Coast displayed a powerful performance in the league, slugging 11 home runs and pitching a 1.58 earned run average as a team, both of which led the league by a comfortable margin.
The Coast brought reinforcements on the trip to South Korea, adding nine players from the Oakland Ballers and three from the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds. Long Beach’s roster became something of a PBL superteam, boasting players like Logan Johnstone, Jeter Ybarra and Andrew Kirchner —hitters who all recorded at least a 1.100 OPS in the 2026 PBL season.
Retired MLB coach Don Wakamatsu took the reins as the Coast manager during the tournament. Former MLB manager John McLaren and Coast pitching coach Jerome Williams rounded out the coaching staff.
Wakamatsu coached 17 years in the Major Leagues, including a 274-game stint as the Seattle Mariners’ manager from 2009 to 2010. His hire in 2009 made him the first Asian American manager in MLB history, a club that now includes Dave Roberts and Kurt Suzuki. His coaching career ended after the 2021 season, but Wakamatsu has served as the executive vice president of the Oakland Ballers since 2023.
“Well, I didn’t think I would be [coaching again], and I was a little reluctant at first, but it turned out to be such a great experience,” Wakamatsu told the Signal Tribune. “I think the cool thing was to be able to go over there with John McLaren, who we’ve had similar paths and both managed the Mariners, and he said to me after it’s all done [that] it might have been the funnest time he’s had in a long time.”
Wakamatsu was presented with the Best Manager award after the championship game.
“Wak is a great guy, he’s a great leader, really good mentor,” first baseman Cuba Bess said. “It was definitely a privilege to be able to play and learn from him for a few weeks, just another great honor to play for a former big league manager, for sure.”
Bess was one of two Coast players to earn awards in the KBO Fall League, winning MVP after hitting .317, five home runs and 16 RBIs, including an RBI double for the go-ahead run in the finale. Third baseman Benjamin Rosengard won Best Hitter after hitting .404, 15 RBIs and the walk-off home run in the semifinal game to send the Coast through to the championship.
“It was great to see how really, as a culture, how different it is over there than from the States,” Bess said. “Basically, just from the scenery to the buildings, culture, the people, the food, it was an incredible experience.”
Bess said their numerous matchups with the Ballers and Freebirds this summer helped familiarize the team with the newcomers, helping them fit in with the Coast upon arrival.
“It didn’t really seem like we were strangers to each other,” Bess said. “We just played ball and we clicked really well.”
Wakamatsu leaned on his previous dealings with some of the players during the recruiting process to better manage the team. He credited the team’s leadership and talent for the Coast’s success, despite having only two practices in South Korea before the first game.
“They played each other so much during the year, I think they had a mutual respect for how good they were and there was a lot of leadership in that group and a lot of good players,” Wakamatsu said.
While baseball is wildly popular in East Asia, the players abide by different philosophies than their American counterparts. The hitters emphasize fundamentals and contact hitting, like putting the ball in play and pitchers tend to rely on sequencing and deception with off-speed pitches. However, recently there’s been a shift toward American-style baseball. Wakamatsu noticed the Western influence over the years, with weight training and more aggressive swings early in the count.
“I think it was good for those guys to go over and face Asian pitching because you’ve seen the dominance of some of those pitchers coming over now and (Yoshinobu) Yamamoto and Shohei (Ohtani) and those type of guys where the velocity is climbing up,” Wakamatsu said.
One person who provided Wakamatsu with information about traveling to South Korea was friend and 16-year Major Leaguer Shin-Soo Choo. Choo is a native Korean and was part of the Texas Rangers when Wakamatsu was on the coaching staff. Choo is still involved in professional baseball after retiring in 2024, working on player development with the KBO’s SSG Landers.
“I wanted to know what to expect when we got over there and he was informative on the way the ABS was run over there, some of the rules and style of play,” Wakamatsu said. “We built a great friendship. We lived not too far from each other in Texas and so we actually spent time together and I have the utmost respect for him, and what a great career he had.”
On top of winning the championship, Wakamatsu enjoyed how the team was treated like honored guests during their stay, especially after the KBO commissioner brought the team to a KBO semi-final playoff game between the Kia Tigers and eventual champion Samsung Lions. According to Wakamatsu, the team watched the game in a suite and received a royal treatment.
“I think that experience kind of surpasses winning the championship in the Pioneer League solely because we were the first American team invited to go play over there in Korea, in that fall league,” Bess said. “We were lucky and fortunate enough that they invited us to go so honestly, I think that experience kind of tops winning a Pioneer League championship, in my opinion.”
Eyes will be on the Coast after the team’s accomplishments in their inaugural season. After fostering a winning culture with a loyal fanbase in year one, available players should view Long Beach as a viable destination as the team looks to avenge their Championship Series loss.
