Dan Straily, 36, who joined Lotte in 2020, is considered one of the most successful foreign players in the franchise’s history. His 205 strikeouts in 194⅔ innings pitched in 31 games in 2020, his first season, remain a masterpiece.
With the 200-strikeout lineage threatening to be broken in the league as a whole, Streeley surpassed it with his dominant strikeout performance. It was the second 200-strikeout game in Lotte history, following Choi Dong-won and Joo Hyung-kwang, and the first in the 21st century. With Choi Dong-won’s name synonymous with Lotte and Busan, Straylor was bound to be fondly remembered.
Striley played 31 games in 2021 before returning to the United States, but returned in the second half of 2022 as the team’s substitute foreign player and led the team in ace mode. He played 16 games in 2023 before saying goodbye to Lotte and returning to the United States. In his four seasons in the KBO, he appeared in 89 games, compiling a 32-23 record with a 3.29 ERA.
After being released from Lotte, Stratley is now preparing for what could be the final challenge of his career. A top-100 prospect as a youngster, Strily made his major league debut with Oakland in 2012 and played in 156 major league games (140 starts) through 2019. He won 44 games in the majors. However, he hasn’t been able to return to the majors since coming to the KBO.
It”s safe to say that Stratton”s last challenge is to play at least one more game in the majors and finish his career. Given his age, it’s not easy to make it to the big leagues overseas. However, that challenge is slowly losing steam. He signed a minor league contract with the Cubs ahead of this season, but his performance in the minors hasn”t been good enough to warrant a call-up.
Streeley has been rotating through the starting rotation for the Iowa Cubs, the club’s Triple-A affiliate. He has started seven of eight Triple-A games this year. It’s clear that the organization considers him a backup starter. However, in those eight games, he has only pitched 33⅔ innings and is 4-0 with a 6.42 ERA. His batting average is nearly three times higher at .296 and his WHIP is 1.78.
In his starts this season, he hasn’t completed six innings in 안전놀이터 any of them, and his velocity has dropped across the board. If he’s going to be used as a long reliever, he needs to be able to reliably close out two or three innings. That’s why his use in the majors is ambiguous.
If he continues to perform as well as he has, there”s no guarantee that he”ll be around after this season. He’ll be 37 years old next year, an age that even the most pitching-deprived teams in the United States would be reluctant to sign him. If he doesn”t get a minor league contract, he”ll have to wait for an opportunity in the Dominican Republic or Mexico, which is up to him. He’ll need to perform at least minimally this year to keep his dreams of reaching the majors alive.