Minnesota Twins: ByungHo Park appears to be heading back to Korea
It appears that the Minnesota Twins will be down one less designated hitter option this spring with the potential departure of ByungHo Park.
He was supposed to hit the ball out of the park at a monster rate and now it looks like he’s just going to go on home. Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press is reporting that the Minnesota Twins and ByungHo Park in talks to send him back to the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) where he came from.
Berardino cautions in his report that this is not yet a done deal, but is expected to be done. There are plenty of things to figure out and one can only imagine so.
Park was an incredible slugger in the KBO before he came over to the United States and the Minnesota Twins. Those home runs did not translate over to Major League Baseball and that resulted in Park being parked in the minor leagues for a majority of his American baseball career.
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The promised slugger only slugged out 12 home runs in his MLB career. Park hadn’t appeared in a game at the major league level since June of 2016. Not only did Park not fare well at the big league level, he also didn’t fare all that well at Triple-A Rochester either.
Park missed a good chunk of time at the beginning of the season for the Rochester Red Wings in 2017, but still appeared in 111 games for the minor league affiliate. In those 111 games, Park only hit 15 home runs this past season with a .253 average.
This is despite a fairly hot Spring Training play from Park. Park played so well in March that some were clamoring for him to make the major league roster, but the Twins’ brass resisted the temptation to scratch that itch.
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It appears that Park looks willing to leave $5.1 million on the table with his desire to return to the KBO. It’d be nice to be able to have that option in life.