Ruminations in Korea

Comment by Wedge

6 April 2005 @ 12:39 pm

I had to put up with this oxygen thief while he was with the Diamondbacks. I’ve never seen so many blown games.

Comment by hk

12 April 2005 @ 4:03 am

Why are you so bitter towards Byung Hyun Kim?

Is it because he’s a professional athlete in your country? Your country that wouldn’t even give you a menial job, forcing you to move to Korea?

So the US values a Korean baseball player at about 1000 times the pay rate that they value you. Why hate on the Korean? Jesus, it’s the Koreans who have to suffer by taking all the American refuse in as english teachers.

Comment by Jeff in Korea

12 April 2005 @ 4:07 pm

Hk,

YOU SAY:
Why are you so bitter towards Byung Hyun Kim?

ME:
I’m not bitter. I just think he sucks. Now that Park Chan Ho has turned into a complete nothing and may go down in history as one of the worst trades in Baseball history, Kim is being touted as THE Korean major league superstar. He clearly is not.

Some people point to the fact that he has two world series rings. As ridiculous as that sounds, it is not proof that he is a good pitcher, it is proof that the teams were good enough to get by despite having Kim on their team.

It is nothing short of a baseball miracle that Arizona won the world series despite the HORRIBLE pitching from Kim that singlehandedly very nearly put them out of the series. You will note that the Red Sox didn’t let Kim anywhere near the world series.

I’m not bitter, but other people sure are. Look at what the Red Sox General Manager had to say about Kim, “We certainly made a mistake and I take responsibility for that. It’s just a mystery what happened to this guy.” That’s not a ringing endorsement.

In the pre-season with the Sox, Kim gave up 4 runs in 6 2/3 innings. In his opening game with the Rockies, he gave up EIGHT runs in 1/3 of an inning… EIGHT runs! That is not good. In fact, that sucks.

How bad of a player is he? Read on.

YOU SAY:
Is it because he’s a professional athlete in your country?

ME:
No. Not at all. I don’t care where he came from. It is completely irrelvant to me. There are lots of enormously talented foreign sports superstars playing in the US. More power to them. Despite what many people want to believe, Kim is not counted amoung them.

YOU SAY:
Your country that wouldn’t even give you a menial job, forcing you to move to Korea?

ME:
That’s an intersting thing for you to say. First, why would I want a menial job in the US? Second, what makes you think that I came to Korea to find easy employment? In fact, I am here because my employer spent 8 months begging me to come work for him. There were more than enough career opportunities for me in the US.

(note that so far, you are the only one being racist and stereotyping others….I’m not)

YOU SAY:
So the US values a Korean baseball player at about 1000 times the pay rate that they value you.

ME:
Again, that’s interesting. Let’s take a closer look at this. Kim’s official salary for this season is roughly US$6,500,000. Of that amount 5.6 million dollars comes from the Red Sox who are paying him NOT to play for them. How bad do you have to be for someone to pay you USD$5,600,000 to go away and not pitch for them?

Colorado paid the Sox a couple of million dollars to balance out the salary of ANOTHER player and traded a middle minor league player for Kim.

That is what Kim is worth -5.6 million and the Rockies thought so highly of him that they were willing to give up some guy that may never make it to the big leagues in exchange for Kim.

So, if you deduct the amount that Kim is being paid to simply GO AWAY and not touch a Sox baseball, you are left with the Rockies paying him about US$900,000 this year.

That puts him in a high tax bracket so figure 50% for taxes which leaves him with USD $450,000. I wont deduct things like his agent fees, which are very substantial.

On these after tax figures, Kim is making less than 3 times what I make…and I haven’t got my raise yet this year. That is a far cry from 1000 times more.

YOU SAY:
Why hate on the Korean?

ME:
I’m not hating on him. He just sucks. He’s washed up in his late 20s. The only reason I am talking about him is because I happen to live in Korea and far too many people here are talking about him as if he were the greatest player in the league.

YOU SAY:
It’s the Koreans who have to suffer by taking all the American refuse in as english teachers.

ME:
That is a subject for another post. However, I pretty much agree with you on that point.

Comment by hey

3 February 2006 @ 12:44 am

Jeff in Korea…your an idiot!