Lee Kang-cheol, coach of the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team, is calculating the height of the mound through meticulous bullpen management in this tournament to be held in March. However, the composition of the national team’s pitching staff was paradoxical. Among all WBC national teams, there are few professional bullpen pitchers.
A total of 15 pitchers aboard Lee Kang-cheol. Among them, 토토사이트 there are only five players in each team who play as setup man or finisher to protect the second half of the game: Go Woo-seok · Jung Woo-young (above LG), Kim Won-joong (Lotte), Jeong Cheol-won (Doosan), and Lee Yong-chan (NC). All 10 players except for them are starting pitchers for their respective teams: Kwang-Hyun Kim (SSG), Hyeon-Jong Yang and Eui-Ri Lee (KIA), Chang-Mo Koo (NC), Young-Pyo Ko and Hyeong-Jun So (KT), Se-Woong Park (Lotte), Tae-In Won (Samsung), Yun-Sik Kim (LG) and Kwak Bin (Doosan).
Coach Lee Kang-cheol has already expressed his intention to “appoint pitchers regardless of position.” In addition, March is the time when starting pitchers gradually raise their pitches. Since the maximum number of pitches per pitcher per round is only 65, and a one-day break is granted if more than 30 pitches are thrown, it is a good time for starting pitchers to come up one after another and share their roles. There are quite a few cases in which two or three starting pitchers make the mound in a row in a professional baseball demonstration game held in March.
However, it is an opportunity to look back at the floor of professional relievers in the entire KBO League. A person who attended the selection process for the national team said, “It was a trend that many starting pitchers were selected after looking mainly at pitch. He also considered the timing of the tournament and the limit on the number of pitches.”
It wasn’t like that in the past WBC national team selection process either.For example, in the 2009 WBC, where coach Kim In-sik took the baton and finished the tournament as runner-up, 13 pitchers were included in the final roster, including Dae-hyun Jeong and Seung-ho Lee (above SK), Jae-woo Lee and Tae-hoon Lim (Doosan), Seung-hwan Oh and Hyun-wook Jung (Samsung), and Chang-yong Lim (Yakult). ) and seven professional bullpen agents, more than half of the total number of personnel.
In addition, in the recent WBC tournament in 2017, out of 13 pitchers, Yang Hyeon-jong (KIA), Jang Won-joon (Doosan), Cha Woo-chan (then LG), and Lee Dae-eun (National Police Agency), except for 4 starting pitchers, 9 were introduced as professional reliever pitchers. also gave
Forming a pitching staff based on starting pitchers in the technical committee of the national team could be one strategy. However, on the other hand, it can be interpreted that there are fewer attractive bullpen pitchers in the KBO League. Given the current KBO League pitching structure, it can be seen that it was judged that it is a little more effective for starting pitchers to throw short innings than for professional bullpen pitchers to throw short innings as usual.
Kim Jae-yoon (33 saves, KT), 2nd in KBO League saves in the 2022 season, Jung Hae-young (32 saves, KIA), and Oh Seung-hwan (31 saves, Samsung), 4th, were not allowed to board this national team. In addition, Kim Min-soo (4.01, KT), who is the 토토사이트 first reliever in WAR, and Kim Jae-woong (3.62, Kiwoom), who is the third, were not included in the national team this time.