Nexen accepts $12.85MM posting fee for Korean slugger Byung-ho Park
Korean slugger Byung-ho Park is ready to follow in the footsteps of fellow countryman Jung Ho Kang and take his shot at Major League Baseball. All he needs now is a contract from the major league team that won the right to exclusively negotiate with him over the next month.
On Friday, the Nexen Heroes announced they will accept a $12.85MM bid for negotiating privileges with their star first baseman. That means the winning major league team now has 30 days to negotiate and finalize a contract, or he’ll return to Korea for the 2016 season.
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It is not yet known what MLB club submitted the winning bid. That information is expected to be released early next week.
According to MLB.com’s Tom Singer, the number of teams bidding on Park was expected to exceed a dozen as numerous teams seek a full-time, power-hitting first baseman. Park, who will turn 30 on July 10, certainly fits that bill. He’s produced some monster numbers for Nexen over the past few seasons, including launching 53 home runs in 2015.
He also has a strong bat flip game, which will no doubt rub some major league pitchers the wrong way should he choose to unleash it.
Given the success that Jung Ho Kang enjoyed in his first season with the Pittsburgh Pirates — he hit .310/.364/.548 with 11 homers after the All-Star break — concerns about how Park’s offensive game and especially his power will translate are obviously much lower than they were for Kang. The Pirates infielder effectively changed the expectations and set a new standard in that regard, and now others, like Park, will reap the benefits.
We’ve already seen the impact just on the posting fee. Park’s winning $12.85MM bid more than doubles the $5MM Pittsburgh paid for the rights to negotiate with Kang last winter. Kang ended up agreeing to a four-year deal worth $11MM guaranteed. Now it will be interesting to see where the contract numbers go with Park, and how he perceives his own value.
Also worth noting, left-handed pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu commanded a posting fee north of $25MM. Both Park and Kang were nowhere near that ballpark, but the pitching market is often a different animal all together.
There’s no strong indication of which teams may or may not have won the bidding on Park, but there’s plenty of speculation that teams like Pittsburgh and Boston were involved. For now, it’s a waiting game. A pretty fascinating one, too, as one team’s offseason could heat up quickly.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
