Chris Jaffe celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Rangers signing of Chan Ho Park:

When a lot of people think of huge contracts for the Rangers, they think of Rodriguez, but Park had a far, far worse contract. Rodriguez provided value on the field. Park just gave the club a depleted bank account.

For me at least, this deal belongs in part of a time capsule in the self-image of the sabermetric community. I don’t think there was ever such a sense of knowing more or being the wave of the future as their was among the stat community back then. I remember discussions on the late, great Rob Neyer Message Board where we blasted this trade as an obviously bad one. We knew about park factors and Voros McCracken, but apparently the Rangers didn’t.

I highly doubt the people running the Rangers today would make the same mistake.