First baseman Byung-ho Park has signed with the KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced. It’s a three-year deal that’ll pay him $2.5MM (h/t to Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap).
Park, 35, has spent the bulk of his professional career in South Korea. He broke in as an 18-year-old in 2005 and spent his first few seasons with the LG Twins. By 2011, he’d moved to the Nexen Heroes and quickly emerged as a middle-of-the-order masher. He posted an OPS above 1.000 in each season from 2013-15, blasting 50+ home runs in each of the latter two years of that run.
While that stretch marked the best few years of Park’s career, he’s better known in the United States for his stint with the Minnesota Twins. After the 2015 campaign, the Heroes made the right-handed hitter available to big league clubs via the posting system. At that time, the posting process involved blind bidding for the right to negotiate with the player. (The most recent CBA completely changed the system, and the posting fee is now determined as a percentage of the player’s contract).
The Twins won the bidding by paying a $12.85MM posting fee to the Heroes, giving them a month’s window of exclusive negotiation to hammer out a deal with Park. They eventually agreed upon a four-year, $12MM deal that brought the Twins’ total outlay just under $25MM in hopes of adding an impact bat to the lineup.
Unfortunately for Park and the Twins, that proved not to be the case. He struggled to a .191/.275/.409 line over 244 MLB plate appearances in 2016, punching out at an alarming 32.8% clip. The Twins outrighted him off the 40-man roster that offseason, and he spent the entire 2017 campaign in Triple-A. At the end of that second season, Park requested and was granted his release to return to his home country, with contemporary reports indicating he forewent some or all of his remaining guaranteed money from Minnesota to do so.
Park has spent the past four seasons with the Heroes, mashing over the first two years before enduring an offensive dip in each of the past two campaigns. He’s coming off a .229/.322/.433 showing that’s his least productive in the KBO in over a decade. He’ll now make the jump to his third KBO organization, leaving the Heroes to sign with the Wiz.
KBO HOF??
We’re down to this now?
I enjoy it.
@Thomar
Baseball is played in many different countries, I wish people like you would acknowledge this. I love hearing about the NPB, the KBO, and any league for that matter as I love the sport. I hope there’ll be more about the Mexican league, the Dominican League, the Venezuelan league, the Puerto Rican league, the Australian league etc. Thank you MLBTR.
Agreed Crime Dog!
Off topic but does anyone else remember The Wiz? That Wizard of Oz musical from the 70s with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Richard Pryor?
The Wiz was pretty decent.
Nobody beats the WIZZZZZZ!
They are the league champs!
I’m the Wiz and nobody beats me!
punching out at an alarming 32.8% clip… wow… people have lousy memories… It was evident from the beginning that Park was a one dimensional hitter.. and then you have Sayno.. with a lifetime 36.5% K rate ( Fangraphs)… and lousy footwork and memory lapses… making him a terrible 1st baseman…
Obviously, the pitching talent in the KBO is well below MLB skill sets. Maybe A level at best?
@jim stem
Hyun jin-Ryu “A level at best”.
Kwang-Hyun Kim “A level at best”.
Seung Hwan Oh was good for the Cardinals until he was misused.
Byung-Hyun Kim
Chan Ho Park
I wish people like you would get a clue, because as of now you haven’t got a clue.
If you’re going to comment about the KBO why don’t you first watch some games before criticizing. I have watched plenty of games and it isn’t “A level” at all. In fact, many former MLB players have struggled in the KBO as hitters and pitchers.
I would say pitching is at double A level hitting is somewhere in between double A and triple A
@HidekiMatsuimalemodel
Show me the “double A” pitchers that could get a contract in the KBO. What you’ve posted is nonsense.
Crime Dog what level would you put the hitting and pitching? Honest question as I am still learning.
Not all pitchers you moron the best ones can definitely make and MLB roster.
Lol jump on the Eric Joskich site. Kbo is AA/AAA talent at best. Crime dog can pick 3 players in the entire time the kbo league has been around. Also the Kids are in their teens and early 20s in AA. Kim is 32 and has dominanted the kbo since 18 that’s like getting 14 years of AA ball. Ryu and Kim were dominating the KBO at 18. These guys were elite and obviously mlb talent
Park is a perfect example. 105 hr in two seasons before he stunk up the mlb back to smacking 43 hrs first season back in the kbo
Honestly mlb get your issues fixed so we can read about you