The Pittsburgh Pirates have released right-handed pitcher Josh Stinson, who signed as a minor league free agent back in October. He was released so he could sign a one-year contract with Kia of the Korean League. Stinson has spent parts of four seasons in the majors, splitting time between the New York Mets, Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles. He will make $500,000 this season in Korea.
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.
Doesn’t this cast a pall over any Kang signing? Only those who can’t cut it go to Korea. A fringe player with a bit of talent goes to Japan (see Brad Eldred). How can we expect a player against such “talent” to excel in the bigs?
I’m hoping Kang works out and that he was a big fish in a small pond. You do have a point though Stinson will probably be the ace on his team. It shows what kind of pitching Kang was up against.
Did you catch 20 mil for Kang, lol?! What a joke. If I owned the Pirates I’d fire everyone involved for being so reckless with my money. I wouldn’t even wait for him to fail miserably as he surely will.
If we had a player in Altoona that hit 40 hr’s we would want him promoted. Also many would be calling to extend him immediately to buy out his arbitration years. I think there;s enough upside that this is a good deal, and in 4 years an average of 5 million (including fee) will be a good value even for a bench player.
See Brad Eldred’s numbers at Altoona. Note that he washed out at the bigs and has only succeeded in Japan, even at that only one year out of three.
If you send jayson nix down to triple A and call up Polanco is that equivalent?
A US player going to Korea and Kang coming here aren’t exact equivalents. It could be that Kang’s just a big fish in a small pond.
His salary would have been 500,000 if he stayed with Pit, why would he go all the way to Korea to pitch?
If he made the majors, it would have been that much, but as a minor league free agent, his salary was more likely to be $100-120K while in AAA and pro-rated $500k if he spent any time in the majors
Thanks for clearing that up.
He was sent over there to scout out some more hitters. 🙂