SEOUL– South Korean player Park Hoy-jun has been sent to the minor leagues in the Atlanta Braves organization, after getting traded twice earlier in the offseason.
The Braves announced Thursday (U.S. local time) they have outrighted Park to their Triple-A affiliate in Gwinnett, Georgia, about a week after designating him for assignment.
If a player is designated for assignment, or DFA’d in major league parlance, he can be traded or placed on irrevocable waivers within seven days. And if the player clears waivers — meaning, if no team picks that player from waivers — then the player may be sent outright to the minors or released.
The Braves’ move extended a lifeline to Park, who otherwise would have remained without a team with about a month left until spring training.
Park split the 2022 season between the majors and the minors for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but the Pirates first DFA’d him on Nov. 22. He was traded to the Boston Red Sox the following day.
Then the Red Sox DFA’d him on Dec. 13 and sent him to the Braves three days later in exchange for a player to be named later.
The Braves had been seeking infield depth and Park would have been fighting for a backup infielder position. Instead, the Braves did what the Pirates and the Red Sox had done earlier and put Park’s big league career in limbo.
That uncertainty cost Park a chance to play for South Korea at the World Baseball Classic in March. In announcing the country’s 30-man roster, Cho Bum-hyun, technical director for the national team, said he left Park off the team because of his murky future and decided to go with other options available in the Korea Baseball Organization.
Park, 26, signed with the New York Yankees in 2014 and made his big league debut with the team in July 2021.
He was dealt to the Pirates later that same month. In 2022, he appeared in 23 big league games across four stints with the Pirates, while spending the rest of the time in the minors.
Park had a .216/.276/.373 line with two home runs and six RBIs in those 23 games. The versatile player has appeared at second base, third base, shortstop and right field this year.
Source: Yonhap News Agency