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Pacific Perspectives: Wang, Park find new homes0
Posted by Michael Street on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 3:24 am
All too often, “Asian baseball player” translates as “Japanese baseball
player,” even in my mind. But there’s plenty of talent from other Asian
countries, and Chan Ho Park and Chien-Ming Wang are excellent representatives
of South Korea and Taiwan, respectively. In fact, until Fu-te Ni comes into
his own as a reliever (and pitches for a few more years), Park and Wang are
easily the best pitchers MLB has seen from their respective countries.
That may change as players like Ni are developed in the burgeoning world of
baseball in Asia. Both Korea and Taiwan are feeding more and more talent into
the minor-league pipelines, and leagues in both countries have become
quadruple-A destinations for players tuning up their skills for a return to
MLB.
For now, however, Wang and Park are the top arms from their countries, as
well as two of the top Asian free agents floating around in the offseason,
and the last ones to sign. Wang, coming off foot and shoulder problems,
still hasn’t throw from a mound, but Washington thought he was worth the
risk—they signed him to a $2M deal this week, with an additional $3M
possible in incentives.
(中略)
Chien-Ming Wang has much less age and experience than Park, but he’s done
something in his short career that few young pitchers have: back-to-back
19-win seasons in his first two full seasons for the Yankees. During that
stretch, he and his sinker produced some astounding results, keeping an ERA
you’d never expect from his modest skills.
Between 2006-7, those peak years when his record was 38-12, his ERA was just
3.67 with a good, but not astonishing, 1.30 WHIP—this came despite just
3.9 K/9 and a sloppy 1.6 BB/K. That’s because of his sinker, which induces
groundballs at a staggering 60% rate for his career and allowed him to hold
opponents to less than half a home run per 9 innings in that two-year stretch.
Being a one-trick pony like this can be a boon or a curse. While he was once
touted for throwing heat in the 95-98 range, shoulder surgery in 2001 forced
him to alter his repertoire. Nowadays, he relies on a cannonball-like sinker,
which can still touch the mid-nineties, mixed in with a slider and a very
occasional splitter or change.
But Wang hasn’t had any repertoire to speak of since 2008, when he ended his
season after injuring his foot in an interleague game in mid-June. He tore
the lisfranc tendon, and even though it didn’t require surgery, he missed
the rest of the season. After rushing the rehab to get ready for 2009, he
screwed up his mechanics, which then screwed up his shoulder.
As he tried to come back in 2009, he was awful, showing what he was like
without his signature pitch. In 9 starts, he recorded a 1-6 record, with a
9.64 ERA and a 2.02 WHIP (no, those aren’t typos). A sure sign was his
1.5 HR/9. His sinker wasn’t sinking, and something was terribly wrong.
Initially diagnosed with a bum hip, Wang ended up once again going under the
knife for his shoulder, ending his season.
All this shouldn’t have been terribly surprising to the Yanks, since poor
health was one of the knocks against Wang. He missed time in 2007 due to a
hammy, 2005 due to shoulder inflammation, but that was nothing compared to
the arthroscopic shoulder surgery that shut him down for all of 2001, even
though it may have forced him to rely more on the sinker that’s now his
signature.
Now he’s on the bump for the Nats, who gambled that $2M contract on Wang
returning to health, and regaining his signature pitch. As for how he might
do, you can check out a complete breakdown on my column at The Hardball
Times(1), but the short answer is: who knows? If he’s healthy and got his
sinker working, it shouldn’t matter that he’s changing leagues, teams, and
parks. The infield defense in Washington is at least similar to the one
behind him in 2006-7 in New York. And if he’s not healthy or if the
sinker’s hanging in the zone, it won’t matter if he’s pitching for the
Nats, the Yanks, or back in Taiwan—he won’t succeed.
There’s no timetable for his return, according to Washington, so we won’t
know exactly when we’ll know how good Wang will be. Whenever he returns,
it will certainly be one of the top Asian baseball stories of 2010, something
I’ll be counting down in a matter of weeks.
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