TODAY: NC Dinos has announced the signing (hat tip to MyKBO’s Dan Kurtz). Wang will receive $900K, with $200K coming in the form of a signing bonus.
YESTERDAY: The Brewers have cleared a spot on the 40-man roster by granting left-hander Wei-Chung Wang his release, tweets Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. The move also creates a roster spot for Lorenzo Cain, who was re-introduced to Milwaukee at a press conference earlier today.
Wang will be pursuing an opportunity with a team in the Korea Baseball Organization. Sung Min Kim of River Ave. Blues recently tweeted that Wang had agreed to a deal with the NC Dinos. He’ll be the first Taiwanese-born pitcher to appear in the KBO, Kim adds.
Wang, 25, was originally signed by the Pirates back in 2011 but wound up in the Brewers organization via the 2013 Rule 5 Draft. Milwaukee carried him for the entire 2014 season despite the fact that he’d never pitched above the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. Unsurprisingly, the lefty didn’t fare well in limited action that year, pitching to a 10.90 ERA in just 17 1/3 innings of work.
Though he didn’t return to the Brewers’ big league team until 2017 (when he tossed just 1 1/3 innings), Wang pitched quite well at Triple-A over parts of three seasons. Despite pitching his home games in an extremely hitter-friendly setting (Colorado Springs), Wang posted a 2.73 ERA with 7.7 K/9 against 1.4 BB/9 through 89 innings across parts of three seasons for the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate.
Well, now the Brewers definitely aren’t winning the NL Central. They will regret releasing the Wang.
I’ll never forget 2014 in Minnesota where the bullpen made Wang pull a hot pink suitcase from the dugout to the outfield right before 1st pitch! Nothing like ‘rookie hazing’ – best of luck to you in the future.
One can only imagine Ron Roenicke is shaking his head today. Not saying that the implosion at the end of the 2014 season was entirely the fault of carrying Wang on the 25-man for the first half (we needn’t discuss the DL maneuvering that took place during the summer) but I’m sure Ron can think of a few games where not having another pitcher he could use in close games made a difference and that it taxed other arms in the bullpen.
Loved his song “Dance Hall Days.”. Will miss him.
Everybody Chung Wang tonight…
I always think of that scene from the 2nd Austin Powers movie with the very suggestively shaped rocket.
MiniMe! Stop humping the “laser”!!
Wang was another one of Doug Melvins great moves!
I’m sure you would’ve won multiple world series if you were GM
Melvin was great on the draft side but was terrible at signing free agents. I can’t think of one notable player he signed as a FA that worked out. Amaris might’ve been his best.