The Twins announced today that they’ve optioned first baseman/designated hitter Byung Ho Park to Triple-A Rochester and replaced him on the roster with Miguel Sano, who has been activated from the disabled list. The decision to option Park, in whom Minnesota invested a total of $24.85MM this offseason (between the posting fee and his four-year contract) is the latest in a season-long series of disappointments for the Twins, although it certainly doesn’t indicate that the investment will ultimately prove to be an error.
[Related: Updated Minnesota Twins depth chart]
Park, 29, was the most prolific power hitter in the Korea Baseball Organization over the past two seasons, prompting the Twins to make a surprise bid of $12.85MM to secure negotiation rights with him, which yielded a four-year, $12MM contract plus a fifth-year option. The slugger struggled out of the gates in Minnesota but found his stride after a couple of weeks. As recently as May 15, Park was hitting a robust .257/.342/.581, having clubbed nine homers, five doubles and a triple through his first 120 big league plate appearances. In 124 plate appearances since that time, however, Park is hitting just .127/.210/.245 with three homers and four doubles. More concerning is the fact that he’s struck out at least once in 26 of the 31 games he’s started over that span. On the whole, Park has punched out at an alarming 32.8 percent clip this season.
An adjustment period was always expected for Park, and unlike countrymen Jung Ho Kang and Hyun Soo Kim, he was thrown right into the everyday lineup with his first big league team. It’s impossible to tell whether a more gradual introduction into the lineup would’ve proved beneficial — Kim, after all, has just 141 PAs on the season, making it rather early to deem him a true success — but Park has looked overmatched at the plate recently.
Park has proven his power to be very real; his average of 420 feet per home run (via Statcast data at Baseball Savant) rates 10th in the Majors, and he’s registered a .219 isolated power mark (slugging minus average). However, his difficulties in making contact have offset his power contributions and slightly above-average walk rate (8.6 percent). The hope for the Twins, presumably, is that Park can continue to adjust to increased velocity and improve his contact skills down at Rochester so that he can better utilize that pop over the remaining three (possibly four) years of his contract.
Park is earning $2.75MM this season and has annual salaries of $2.75MM (2017), $3MM (2018) and $3MM (2019) yet to come, plus at least a $500K buyout of a $6.5MM club option for the 2020 season. Given the fairly minimal nature of the Twins’ investment in him, he still has plenty of time to make their commitment look to be a shrewd move overall.
As for Sano, he’ll return to the Twins after missing the month of June with a hamstring injury. The 23-year-old slugger has struggled to some extent in his own right, as he’s yet to live up to the expectations that came with last season’s .269/.385/.530 debut (with 18 homers in just 80 games played). Sano is hitting .235/.341/.458 with 11 homers in 50 games and has had a difficult time with his transition to the outfield, where both UZR and DRS peg the 6’4″, 260-pounder as below average. The bulk of Sano’s experience as a pro has come at third base, but that spot remains occupied by Trevor Plouffe.
I am sure you mean the bulk of his experience as a pro has come at 3rd base, not right field. Or am I seeing things again?
Aurgh. Thank you. Fixed.
Am I the only who thought the Twins would have a better season than this? I mean I didn’t think they would make the playoffs unless they caught some lucky breaks and got a WC slot, but this is terrible.
You’re not. I wasn’t expecting 90 wins but I thought we could chug along just fine and have a believable shot at a W/C slot… and if the celestial spheres all aligned properly we might even be legitimately good. What we lacked in greatness I thought we made up for in lots of potential and lots of decent role-player kinds of guys. However… Everything that we thought of this spring that could go wrong… well, all of that happened at once, and then some.
You can say that last one again. Not sure what happened but this team looked pretty sharp this spring. Apparently the wheels fell off on Northbound I-75.
It is hard to fathom a team that won 83 games last season would be on track to win 51 this year, especially with half the season completed. One should keep in mind that if you lay aside a really good month last year, the Twins have been bad-to-really-bad now for 6 years. The organization is a mess, top to bottom. I feel bad for Paul Molitor, who might be a good manager if given a good team, but now may not have an opportunity to prove it.
Last year the Twins were 20-7 in May and 63-72 in not May. I think we read way more into breaking 500 than we should have.
Who would of thought that 33 year old dae hoe lee that no ones heard of would be having a better season than Park
Another foreign bust in the making.
“Given the fairly minimal nature of the Twins’ investment in him…”
What are you taking about? They are $25 million into this guy.
Posting fee is not in addition to the salary
Over a span of four years. He doesn’t need to do a whole lot over a four year span to justify a $25M outlay based on the financial landscape of baseball in 2016. He can prove to be worth that with one good season. Even factoring in the posting fee, a $6M annual commitment isn’t of great consequence for most MLB clubs.
How is hitting .257 considered robust?
He was batting .257, now he’s batting .191
The robust part was in reference to the more important slashes after AVG – combining for a really damn good .923 OPS.
When it’s paired with a well above-average OBP and a slugging percentage that’s more than 300 points higher.
It’s bad enough trying to be a white sox fan with all those boneheads running that team and organization, but I’m glad I’m not a Twins fan. Sorry you guys.
Terry Ryan and Kenny Williams are bad for opposite reasons, but we still have a similar problem.
Ryan just lets things stagnate while KW makes random transactions as if he gets paid per trade.
Ryan has always had an open license to do thinks his way because the Pohlads love him and how he brought us out of oblivion in the early 00’s. It seems since KW assembled a bunch of random throwaway relievers who all had insane career years at once and steamrolled through the 2005 postseason… Reinsdorf thinks that’s because KW was brilliant instead of lucky.
The Sox FO is blind squirrels. The Twins FO is paralyzed squirrels. At least blind squirrels stumble over an acorn sometimes. Paralyzed squirrels are content to just sit there and admire other teams’ acorns from a distance
$25 million investment can never be called minimal. They have a guy they are $25MM into and your contention is that they get one good year out of this guy and they’ll be happy? No.
If you value 1 WAR at $4-5m like most places seem to these days it honestly doesn’t take all that much (definitely takes more than 0.1 fWAR, though) for that contract to at least wash out over the life of it.