Tuesday, December 21, 2010

How Colletti Let This One Slip Past Is Beyond Me

Let's see: Washed-up major leaguer? Check. Former Dodger? Check. Former Dodger with MULTIPLE tours of duty? Check. Sub-average career ERA+? Check. Discarded by a small-market team after coming off an overall bad year? Check.

So it must have been the fact that he's never played for the Giants, to explain why Ned Colletti let Chan Ho Park slip away to the Orix Buffaloes, instead of picking him up for the 2011 Dodgers:

Japan's Orix Buffaloes agreed to a one-year deal with pitcher Chan Ho Park, according to the team's Twitter feed. The contract is worth just over $1MM, tweets SI's Jon Heyman. The 37-year-old Korean righty posted a 4.66 ERA, 7.4 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 1.3 HR/9, and 48.7% groundball rate for the Yankees and Pirates this year in 63 2/3 relief innings.

Park still had enough left in the tank to function as a National League middle reliever, but he's chosen to play in Japan instead.

I've never been a fan of Park Factor, so I'm not entirely surprised we passed. Between this and the Mota news, however, I'm pretty stoked that we're letting a couple of dishes pass us on the conveyor belt as we sit at the sushi bar* (looking at the timestamp, in both cases, is a critical step). Is there a spider roll about to turn the corner and head our way? I sure as hell hope so.

Note: (*) This metaphor is in no way supposed to allude to Park's Asian roots--he's not even Japanese, for pete's sake, nor is Mota for that matter. But it did seem like an appropriate analogy to reference. Or maybe I've been frequenting Yo Sushi a bit too much lately. I should go back to wagamama.

5 comments:

Josh S. said...

I like Afloat Sushi in Pasadena. The sushi comes around on little boats.

Fred's Brim said...

i didn't realize they had wagamamas in the US! I ain't going to Boston to get some, but still, it's good to know.

Fred's Brim said...

I had to look it up, but Ismael Vlades is actually younger than Chan Ho Park. They always seemed so similar to me. It's funny how some guys hang around forever and others just fade away

Bryan said...

as a korean american, i'm very sad that we didn't resign him. I will always consider him one of my favorites.

as an objective dodger fan...THANK GOD.

rbnlaw said...

In other news, Fernando Tatis looks to sign with the Yakult Swallows.