Minnesota Twins Player of the Week: Will Park’s success spark trade rumors?
Park continues to improve as Minnesota Twins continue to fall
After a slow start to the season and an even rougher past week, one can’t help but feel disheartened by the way the Minnesota Twins have played lately.
But nonetheless there have been a few standout performances despite going 1-5 during the week, particularly from rookie first baseman Byung-ho Park who gets the nod as Puckett’s Pond Player of the Week.
As the Twins continue their disappointing fall from the high expectation many fans – myself included – had, the hope is that recent roster shakeups won’t mean the team having a big fire sale in the coming weeks.
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I say that because I really hope the Twins don’t send Park packing.
A lot of people were expecting Park to struggle to adapt to the majors and he did as the season began. But despite an overall bad offensive effort by most of the players expected to produce, Park has continued to improve game by game.
This past week alone saw him really act as the offense as he came up with a big triple against the Houston Astros in Monday’s 6-2 win, homer the following game, and score a pair of runs against the Chicago White Sox on Friday.
Overall, Park went 6-for-17 with three RBI’s, a homer and a triple and is now hitting .256 on the season despite having gone 0-for-4 in Sunday’s 3-1 loss.
As it stands, there is little doubt the risk the Twins took on signing the slugger this offseason has paid off. The question now is just how long will Park be in a Twins uniform due to the team’s terrible start.
No doubt many teams would be looking to acquire the services of a power hitting righty, and while there are no real rumors being spread about Park’s availability, no doubt this could be a story to watch in the coming months.
Hopefully this will not be the case as the Twins do still have a lot of time to do the unlikely and dramatically turn things around.
This team does have a lot of young talent and while general manager Terry Ryan will probably be fielding plenty of calls, one would hope he would put Park on the untouchable list with the likes of Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton and Jose Berrios.
Park’s development has been the biggest and brightest thing to watch this season and his popularity has been continuing to grow.
When I was at the Twins game last weekend against the Detroit Tigers, I heard a vendor talking with a customer at the clubhouse store about how Park’s jersey and t-shirts have been among the more popular sellers.
From a business standpoint and a baseball standpoint, let’s hope Park will be here to stay and develop in a Twins uniform because he is now starting to put up numbers that could grant him a potential All-Star berth.