If Yang leaves, will KIA’s expected number of wins fall this season?
The KIA Tigers, who had been waiting for Yang Hyun-jong to change his mind, decided to respect the player’s will and took on the homework at the spring camp called “discovery of Ace.”
The Kia Tigers set up a base camp at Gwangju Kia Champions Field from the 1st and began training for quenching this season.
Coach Matt Williams, who has been in his second year, regrets Yang’s departure, but there is no time to hesitate. With the opening of the season just two months away, it is necessary to find a native ace.
Last year, the Kia Tigers played the season under the five-star system of Gagnon, Im Ki-young and Lee Min-woo, based on Yang Hyun-jong and Brooks. Ganyon, who left a regret, replaced him with Mengden, and succeeded in renewing his contract with Brooks, who played the ace role, and filled all the foreign pitcher slots 메이저사이트
However, the Korean national team, which needs to secure more than three players, does not easily get an answer if Yang Hyun-jong is left out. Yang Hyun-jong, who made his debut in 2007, took the starting position in 2009, the third year since his debut, and maintained the Tigers’ mound for the next 12 years.
In particular, Yang Hyun-jong won the team with 20 wins in 2017 and won the MVP award. Although he had only 11 wins last year, the minimum number of wins since 2014, he played 172.1 innings, showing his steadfastness.
This season, KIA will be selected as the 5th starting candidates, with Lim Ki-young and Lee Min-woo, who kept the rotation last year, and Kim Hyun-soo, Kim Yoo-shin, Lee Eui-ri, and Jang Hyun-sik. There is plenty of possibility, but considering his current skills, it is not difficult to fill the gap of one of the best pitchers in Tiger’s history of the Tigers.
Some predict that KIA will be tough this season due to Yang Hyun-jong’s departure. In fact, the team’s performance fell when we looked at the previous clubs where the ace pitcher’s departure occurred.
In terms of recent cases, the SK Wyverns, where Kim Kwang-hyun left for the Major League last year, are representative. SK, who was unfortunately eliminated from the playoffs in the previous season, received a disastrous report card of ninth place last year, with a series of unfavorable factors such as Kim Kwang-hyun’s departure.
The same goes for the 2013 Hanwha Eagles. Hanwha, who was at the bottom of the list at the time, had to continue the tough fight as Ryu Hyun-jin lost the team’s multiplier Ryu Hyun-jin fell out.
The same was true of the ace teams that advanced to the Japanese professional baseball league in the 1990s. Except for Haitai in 1996, who lost Sun Dong-yeol, Hanwha (Jung Min-cheol) in 2000 and Hyundai (Jung Min-tae) in 2001 had to realize the ace gap as their performance fell right after winning.
