Park Hyo-joon is leaving the Yankees…Trade to Pittsburgh, Land of Opportunity.
Park Hyo-joon (25), a promising Korean player for the New York Yankees, will move to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Yankees began trading on the 27th (Korea time) to strengthen the bullpen, which was pointed out as a weakness for the team.
He gave up prospects Park Hyo-joon and Diego Castillo to Pittsburgh and brought right-handed bullpen Clay Holmes.
Park Hyo-joon signed with the Yankees in July 2014 when he was a senior at Yatap High School for $1.16 million.
Park Hyo-joon, who started his minor league career in 2015, has grown smoothly by jumping to the top league every year.
This year, he played with a batting average of 0.327, 10 home runs, 29 RBIs, 8 steals, and an OPS (on-base + slugging average) of 1.042 in 48 games with the Triple-A Scranton/Wills-Barrie Rail Riders in the Yankees.
Despite her brilliant performance, Park Hyo-joon was not given the opportunity to match her.
He made his big league debut on the 17th and became the 25th Korean major leaguer of all time, but only played one game and went back down to Triple A.
Pittsburgh, Park Hyo-joon’s new team, is a team where Kang Jung-ho played in the past, and Bae Ji-hwan is playing in the minor league Double A.
For Park Hyo-joon, the way to re-enter the Major League is wide open.
Pittsburgh is at the bottom of the National League Central with 38 wins and 61 losses. The postseason is virtually overshadowed by a 19.5 game gap with the world leader Milwaukee Brewers (58 wins and 42 losses).
Pittsburgh sent out second baseman Adam Fraser to the San Diego Padres on condition of receiving three promising players.
As the main competition was looser than that of the Yankees, Park Hyo-joon had a chance to leap from Pittsburgh to the real big league.