Tyrone Woods

Tyrone Woods (born August 16, 1969 in Brooksville, Florida) is a Nippon Professional Baseball first baseman who is currently a free agent. He was the 5th pick of the Montreal Expos in the 1988 MLB draft as a high school third baseman. His debut year showed no indication of the heights he would reach as a pro player. He fielded .882, making 10 errors in 32 games for the GCL Expos and batted just .121. He hit just 2 home runs in 149 at-bats and walked 7 times while whiffing 47 times. He was also caught stealing four times in six tries, completing the struggles defensively, offensively and on the basepaths.

Woods was promoted to the Jamestown Expos in 1989. In Single-A, Woods hit .263; he continued to strike out frequently (58 times in 209 AB), but his walks were up (20) and his average and power (9 homers) were also improved. In 1990, Woods regressed. With the Rockford Expos, the 20-year-old third baseman hit just .242, but it was still well above the team average (.226). He also led the team in doubles (27), homers (8) and strikeouts (121). His OBP was about .310 and he slugged .363. Woods made it to High-A in 1991 and he hit just .220 for the West Palm Beach Expos, which was still tolerable in a pitching-friendly environment. He also was moved from third base to the outfield that year.

1992 was a busy year for Woods. He hit .291 for Rockford and even stole 15 bases in 21 tries. He hit .286 for West Palm Beach and struck out in 3 of his 4 at-bats in his first Double-A exposure with the Harrisburg Senators.

In 1993, Woods returned to Harrisburg and at age 23 did fine for his age at Double-A, batting .252, playing a solid supporting role on one of the greatest Double-A teams in modern minor league history. A year later, Woods split the year between Harrisburg (.316) and the Triple-A Ottawa Lynx (.224). On November 18, the Expos gave up on Woods and released him.

Woods found a home with the Baltimore Orioles' Rochester Red Wings farm club in 1995 and hit .261 as a 1B/DH/OF. A year later, Woods was in another system, joining the Boston Red Sox and playing for the Trenton Thunder. At 26, he was getting old for a prospect, but he had his best year yet, hitting .312, though he was outshown by his teammate, another long-time minor-leaguer, Adam Hyzdu. He tied for 5th in the league in homers (25) and was among the leaders in average, OBP and slugging.

In 1997, Woods spent his 10th and final season in a US-based league. He knocked the cover off the ball in Triple-A with the Pawtucket Red Sox hitting .352. He homered 9 times and drove in 28 in 29 games but didn't play for the parent Boston team. He also played that year for the Minatitlan Potros of the Mexican League, homering 18 times in 85 games for 27 homers that year and 101 runs (73 RBI in 85 games for the Potros). Woods hit .342. His walk total (59) had now surpassed his K total (49).

1998 found Woods in the Korea Professional Baseball at the relatively young age of 28. He became the first foreign player to hit a home run and the first to be ejected from a game by an umpire in the league's first year integrating outsiders. Playing for the Doosan Bears, he set a new KBO record with 42 homers and won the MVP award. As of 2008, he is the only foreigner to have won the Korea Baseball Organization MVP. Two years later, he hit .315 with 39 homers and 111 RBI and lost the home run race by one to Park Kyung-wan. He had another big year in 2001, winning MVP honors in the All-Star game, playoffs and Korean Series, in which be blasted 4 homers in 6 games for Doosan. In 2002, Woods started slowly and hit just .256; he struck out 123 times in 407 AB though he did blast 25 homers. Overall in five years in Korea, he hit 174 homers, driven in 510 and batted .294. Woods left Korea with the longest career of any foreign player in the history of the KBO. In 2005, Jay Davis broke his mark.

Woods left the Bears to try his hand in Japan in 2003, signing with the Yokohama BayStars. Nippon Pro Baseball fans were quite critical of the move, alleging that Woods was on the decline. Woods proved the skeptics to wrong as he hit .273 and tied for the home run lead with Alex Ramirez with 40. He was 6th in the Central League in slugging, 4th in walks (66) and 5th in RBI (87) though he also led the league with 132 K's. Woods became the first man to lead a league in homers in both Korea and Japan.

Woods improved in his second year with Yokohama, hitting .298. He made the Best Nine at first base, tied Tuffy Rhodes for the home run lead with 45, was third in walks (74) and tied for third in RBIs (103). He was also 5th in slugging and 4th in OBP and OPS. He struck out 142 times, which ranked him third in that category.

After the 2004 season, he signed with the defending CL champion Chunichi Dragons and hit .306 with 38 homers. He was third in OPS and homers, 5th in slugging, 4th in OBP, tied for 4th with 103 RBI and ground into the most double plays (24) as the Dragons' 1B and cleanup hitter. Woods missed 10 games due to a suspension he served after charging the mound when Shugo Fujii threw high and inside during an at-bat. Woods was also fined 500,000 yen. It was the harshest penalty given to any player in Japan in five years.

After the 2005 season was completed, Woods had hit 421 homers in his pro career.

In 2006, Woods put together an MVP caliber season by batting .310 with a league-leading 47 homers and 144 RBI. However, the MVP award that season went to his teammate, Kosuke Fukudome. To clinch the title for Chunichi, he hit grand slams in back-to-back games, the first Central Leaguer to do so since Fumio Fujimura 53 years earlier. He also set a new team record for home runs. He played for the Dragons until 2008.

In addition to playing baseball, Woods worked for a time for the Brooksville Fire Department.

External links

• Nippon Professional Baseball career statistics from Japanesebaseball.com