Pittsburgh Pirates: Examining the Newly Acquired Hoy Park

The Pittsburgh Pirates will welcome Hoy Park into the organization after being acquired from the New York Yankees. So what is he bringing to the table?

The Pittsburgh Pirates recently made out like bandits as they acquired two of the New York Yankees’ top 30 prospects for Clay Holmes. The headliner going back to Pittsburgh was infielder Diego Castillo. But the second piece, Korean prospect Hoy Park, brings the Pirates another potential future utility man option.

Park, a 25-year-old left-handed hitter, has played most of his 2021 season at Triple-A. In 233 plate appearances, Park looks like an MVP-caliber hitter. He’s putting up a .327/.475/.567 line with 10 long balls, a .451 wOBA, and 177 wRC+. Park is walking at an insane 20.6% rate with an identical strikeout rate.

Now, don’t get your hopes up that much. This kind of production is uprecidented for Park. But that doesn’t mean he was ever that bad of a hitter. From 2015 thorugh 2019, Park was more of your on-base/speed threat. In total between these 5 seasons Park had an outstanding 14% walk rate. He also went down on strike three 18.8% of all his plate appearances. Park’s outstanding on base ability paired well with the fact he swiped a dozen plus bases in all of his minor league seasons so far. Though this came with the caveat that he never had a slugging percentage over .400.

Park played second base and shortstop throughout his first handful of seasons in the minor leagues. Though this year, he’s played a bit of everywhere. Along with both middle infield positions, Park has also played some in the outfield, and third base. He has a 6’1, 175 pound frame, so he isn’t the biggest guy and has more of an athletic build.

Park may not be a big time hitter but he could find himself as one of the Pirates options at second base now with Adam Frazier gone. Currently, Park is only seen as a 40 FV prospect by FanGraphs and ranked as the Yanks’ 30th best prospect. But he could be a solid .250/.350/.380 hitter in the Major Leagues.

He’s starting to show a little bit of pop and while expecting the power to be the new him is an unreasonable expectation, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to be an on base threat with enough bat to be a contributor as a lead-off kind of hitter. He’s always been great at drawing walks, reaching base, and getting into scoring position. Combined with the fact he can play multiple positions well and you’re looking at a potential long term super-sub who can handle himself with the bat.