Petco Park-less

So Chan Ho Park bids the San Diego faithful adieu (“adieu,” which means “good-bye,” in as close as I can come to Korean). Buh-bye, pal. Nice knowing ya.

For the Padres, it’s addition by subtraction. Subtraction, as in, the subtraction of a player who gave his club a peek of brilliance at times, with larger doses of mediocrity and disability at others. Subtraction, as in, the subtraction of $22 million for 11 wins in exactly a season and a half. 11 wins, 10 losses, and ERAs of 5.91 and 4.81.

When it comes to free agency gone wild, Chan Ho Park is about as textbook a case as you can get. After winning 75 games and pitching 1000-plus innings in the five years including his 2001 walk year in Los Angeles, Park won 33 games in 564 innings the next five seasons. For $60 million.

The New York Mets get a cheap sign, with Park coming in at $600,000 plus incentives, which might add up to $2.4 million. The Pads get a Type-B compensatory pick and save some dough to invest elsewhere. More importantly, much more importantly, it marks the end of yet another of the sorry contracts negotiated by Park’s former agent, Scott Boras.

For the record, here’s a list of Boras’ clients who have either been paid a ton of money to produce next to nothing as a free agent, or found themselves, shall we say, stuck in less than joyous circumstances, or both: Rick Ankiel, Adrian Beltre, J.D. Drew, Darren Dreifort, Alex Fernandez, Eric Gagne, Dan Kolb, Chan Ho Park, Alex Rodriguez, Jeff Weaver and Jarrod Washburn. Happy campers all.

Remember, glove conquers all…

— HOWARD COLE