Minnesota Twins: Byung Ho Park Not a Bust, Yet
By Jason Burke
Last winter the Minnesota Twins acquired the services of Byung Ho Park from the KBO in the hope that he would be another big power bat to put with young stars Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton. Park ended up in Triple-A by July, but there are still a few reasons to be hopeful that he pans out for the Twins.
Over at FanGraphs, Travis Sawchik wrote up some of the reasons that the Minnesota Twins and their fans shouldn’t be too down on Byung Ho Park with a new season around the corner. While the 50 home run seasons he was putting up in Korea are almost certainly out of the question, a year in the 25-30 range is still in the realm of possibility.
Sawchik mentions that Park’s strikeout rate of 32.8 percent in his rookie season was high across Major League Baseball. His swinging strike rate of 15 percent would have ranked 7th among qualified hitters if had had been with the Twins all season. That would have been right up there with Chris Carter, who may be headed to Japan, and Matt Kemp.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that Statcast comes to Park’s aid a bit. Park ranked second in Barrels per Batted Ball at 18.7 percent, which was right behind Gary Sanchez. A Barrel is defined as a “well struck ball with an estimated batting average/slugging percentage of .500/1.500.” If you’re wondering what defines “well hit” Tom Tango, the creator of the statistic, says that it’s a ball with an exit velocity of at least 98 miles per hour. The full definition can be found here.
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
Park’s average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives also ranked among the big league leaders, with his 97.2 miles per hour ranking 10th with Miguel Cabrera, Josh Donaldson and David Ortiz being a few of the names on the list ahead of him.
There are reasons to be optimistic when it comes to Byung Ho Park in a Minnesota Twins uniform. With an improved Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano hopefully returning to form, that may help alleviate some of the pressure that was on Park in his first season.
Sawchik mentions the strikeout rates of Paul Goldschmidt (29.9%) and Kris Bryant (30.6%) being relatively high in their first years, but ultimately cutting down on that percentage in a big way. In his final year with the KBO, Park struck out in 25.8 percent of his plate appearances. He may not make it all the way to that rate in 2017, but somewhere in the middle would be a nice starting point.
The key for the big right-hander will be for Park to lay off the pitches low and away from him this season. According to his charts on MLB.com, the one area that pitchers threw to more than any other was outside of the zone, low and away. If you added up each box on the heat map inside the strike zone that formed the letter “J”, the number of pitches thrown in those five zones still wouldn’t have equalled what he saw low and away.
Next: Top 4 Players Entering Contract Years
Asking him to lay off anything either down or away would be hard, since he generated all of his power on the outer two-thirds of the plate. Pitch recognition will play a big role for Park and his role on the Twins in 2017. The good part is, the more pitches a player sees, the better they tend to get.