It might be hard for baseball fans outside Asia to fully grasp this, but Park Chan-ho and Wang Chien-ming will be legends in their respective home countries for as long as baseball is played in Korea and Taiwan.

They were the first from their respective countries to break through into the American market, and 100 years from now, should baseball still be part of a globalized milieu, Koreans will still remember Park in the way that Americans remember Sandy Kofax, or Nolan Ryan. Even if he stopped playing today, one century later, Taiwanese people would still wax nostalgically about Wang. Since he’s very unlikely to stop playing now, his legend will continue to grow with every year he does continue to play.

It’s a still a small sample size, but Japan has yet to produce a major league starting pitcher like them-straight out of high school into the American limelight. There’s no specific reason for this, but it does (and will) align Park and Wang for the rest of their careers and long into the future. For this reason  a comparison seems in order. How are they alike? How are they dislike? And why, despite all his predecessor’s success, should one want to avoid becomming the other?

Last week Wang Chien-ming returned to Taiwan to a Nike-sponsored spectacle that would befit a king. As was reported in the Taiwanese media, the theme for this year’s welcoming was Belief, which, stood in sharp contrast to last year’s press-conference theme of Tranquility.

Commercial press-conference themes aren’t the barometer to gauge a player’s career by, but the change in mood was noticeable. While Wang won another 19 games for the Yankees he was also tagged for 12 runs in 5 2/3 innings vs. Cleveland in a disapointing ALDS. Hardly tranquil. Upending of belief? Time will tell. 

But why do we still question a player who has won 19 games two years running? Wang, after three full seasons in the bigs is up for arbitration in early 2008. Surely an arbiter, should the Yankees and Wang not reach an agreement, will look at Wang’s three seasons and award him a huge increase over the $500,000 pittance he made in 2007. And after 2008, should Wang have another solid 19-win campaign with the Yankees, he’ll surely become one of the high paid pitchers in baseball.

Wang isn’t friendly with the Taiwanese media, as was pointed by my colleague Jackson Broder  in a previous East Windup Chronicle piece. He’s refused to speak with them in stretches, and when he does, much like his delivery, he is calm, slow, methodical, even mumbling in speaking. 

However, when asked at the belief press-conference about his future with the Yankees his answer was comically clear.

From a Taiwan News Online article:

“Of course staying with the Yankees is what I want. The longer I’m with them the better. I hope to stay with them forever,” Wang said in a sudden rhetorical flourish that elicited laughter from the large throng of reporters on hand.

While reading about Belief I came across the news that Park Chan-ho had signed a 1-year deal with the Dodgers.  

There are plenty of dissimilarities between Wang and Park. One is from Taiwan and one from Korea. Wang throws a vicious sinker and is a ground-ball pitcher (to the tune of over 6o GB% per year). Park on the other hand has always been a pure fly-ball pitcher. Wang has a smooth, compact, slow delivery, seemingly pushing the ball toward the plate. Whereas Park, after getting set, quickly throws his weight back and explodes toward the plate.

That said, there are plenty of similarities. Both are national heroes and face the unflinching gaze of medias that would (at best) be considered invasive by most MLB players. At worst, these media are passive-aggressive sycophants; often seeming to move toward the floor in a traditional bow, only to chop at  the player’s legs with a dull ax as quickly.

Perhaps most similar is the fact that both Wang and Park, even in the midst of their greatest individual success, have faced scrutiny both at home and in the U.S. for never quite seeming the sum of their parts. Wang, for reasons no one can explain, gets offensive support (7.04 per game) almost arms would kill for. Park posted great numbers during the latter half of the 90s, but in the pre-Petco paradise of Chavez Ravine. Even during the mid 90s there were plenty of doubters.  

When I talk to Koreans about Park Chan-ho, their eyes light up for a split second and they momentarily bask in the glow of once was as if it still were. Then, and I’ve seen this time and again, they pause and eventually become a little sheepish, even looking at me and giggling, realizing we all know what he’s become.

This reaction is obviously harsh, but Koreans are often their worst critics. In the case of the Korean media it is absolutely Park’s worst critic and 2007 has been a feeding frenzy. From possibly competing for a No. 5 spot in the pennant-bound Mets rotation, Park was demoted, released, signed by the Astros, and sent to Triple-A Round Rock where he proceeded to go 6-14 with a 5.97 ERA.

In August he himself proclaimed his own legend was over and returned to Korea in late October, a broken man. His future was limited to the Korean national team, and there was some speculation in the media here that he wasn’t even worthy of that. When Park popped up in the Game 2 broadcast during the recent Korean Series the announcers avoided the obvious question of ”yo, what’s next?” until finally, after two innings in the booth, Park himself claimed he had no idea.

Enter the Dodgers, who last week signed Park to a no-frills, last-of-the-last chances 1-year deal. The deal is partly based on Park’s strong showing during the World Baseball Classic in 2006, and partly based on nothing. I’d put Park’s chances of success at about 5%. Still, that’s something and Park shouldn’t be completely counted out.

The Park signing, as is often the case with Dodger moves in recent years,  is interesting, just as signing Juan Pierre to bat second was, just as signing Randy Wolf was, and most recently chasing Grady Little out the door to land Good Ol Joe, is.

But it’s not interesting in the quantum physics/game theory/win-a-championship way, and neither is the signing of Park whose most recent productive season was seven years ago with the Dodgers when he was a 15-11 pitcher with a 3.50 ERA.

I’d like to argue that the shock of Park moving to Texas, after playing in L.A., just down the road from Koreatown, moving from a great pitchers park to a pitcher’s nightmare, precipitated the rock-like drop. But unlike fellow Korean Seo Jae-weong, who originally signed with the Mets and pitched fantastically, but then fell off the map when suddenly uprooted and shipped to Tampa via L.A., Park went to Texas under his own volition. In 2001 he inked a 5-year, $65-million deal, in what is surely one of the worst free agent signings of all time.

Park was catastrophic in Texas. To this day, in Korea, there are rumors of ongoing elbow trouble, but there hasn’t been anything conclusive to support this. Of course, moving from one of the best pitching parks in baseball to arguably the worst didn’t help, and Park’s home ERA (6.84) versus his road work of 4.66 with the Rangers is startling.

Eventually he was traded to the Padres, the thinking being that once he was in Petco canyon, the extra track might bring Park’s HR rates, which in 2004 hit an even two per game in 95 innings, down to Earth. But he still gave up 20 in just 136 innings.

Perhaps the most sadistic explanation of Park’s demise, again by Korean media and fans, is that he simply lost his passion for the game. That he signed a huge contract, married the daughter of one of the richest men in Japan, had a kid, and that was that.

I wasn’t living in Korea back in 1997, but I can imagine the scene-Park returns home following his second solid campaign for the Dodgers. Having just posted his second concecutive solid season as a Dodger, posting a 14-8/3.38 and a skinny 1.14 WHIP. 

Park is greeted at Gimpo International Airport in Seoul by hordes of media and fans. He is nothing but gracious, uttering a few stock answers amidst a shower of photo flashes. He is, in Korean,  왕 , which, as it is pronounced in Korean, as it is in the orignal Chinese, is spoken as: Wang.  

There’s nothing to suggest that Wang would ever drop off like Park has. In 2007 opponents hit, slugged, and declined in .OPS vs. Wang. And as for that run support, well, Justin Verlander averaged more (6.77 and 7.32) in both 2006 and 2007 respectively, and Wang has still won more games, arguably playing for lesser teams.

What scares people about Wang is his strikeout rate, and that may spawn from fantasy baseball more than what happens on the field. While he did manage to break the 100 strikeout plateau in 2007, his 4.7 per game is pretty ugly if you’re worried about that kind of thing.

But the future of Wang may rest inside his head and wallet more than his arm. Coming into a contract year with what would appear to be a vastly different Yankee team, there’s a good chance we’re going to find out if Wang is indeed the king, merely a later model of Park, or a pitcher who people will always approach with some trepidation, undeserving of our belief.