What Shin-Soo Choo really said

This morning we mentioned Shin-Soo Choo’s alleged desire to be “transferred” to a winning team, as reported in the Korea Times. Indians’ GM Chris Antonetti said that he suspected that there was a translation issue, because Choo had just told him a week or two ago that he wants to stay in Cleveland and is optimistic about the team’s chances.

Seems that Antonetti was right. Jeeho Yoo, a Korean journalist, read the article as it was originally printed in Korean, and confirms that the translation -- and maybe even the whole English language story in the Korean Times -- was loopy:

Hello, a Korean sports writer here. Choo said, purely out of envy, he wanted to play on a winning team after watching other guys pop champagne for clinching playoff berths. But he didn’t say the word “transfer” (should have been translated into ‘trade.’ It’s baseball, not soccer) as far as I know. But he also said he wants to stay with one club for a long time and Cleveland would be his first choice. Then he said his agent would take care of his contract situation and that he hadn’t heard anything special from the agent.

Thanks Jeeho. So, as suspected, this was much ado about nothing.

And it was also a reminder to cease making the Korea Times my first stop for U.S. baseball news each morning. It may be skewing my perspective a bit.