Reporter Jang Hyeon-gu = World Baseball Classic (WBC) KIA Tigers’ senior coach Jin Gap-yong, a battery coach for the Korean national baseball team, left an important hint before leaving for the United States, where the spring camp will be held on the 29th.
Coach Jin, who went to Australia with national team coach Lee Kang-cheol earlier this month and analyzed the power of Australian players in the first round of the WBC finals, showed a circle changeup grip to catch the ball with the other three fingers spread after drawing a circle with the thumb and forefinger. “This pitch will be used in the game against Australia,” he predicted.
The forkball or splitter, which is caught with the index and third fingers apart, is a pitch that flies like a fastball and then sinks rapidly at home plate. It is the main weapon of Japanese pitchers.
The circle changeup is a manned pitch that steals the batter’s timing. Coach Lee Kang-cheol and coach Jin Gap-yong and other Korean national team coaches analyzed that a changeup is more effective in preventing strong Australian hitters.
The baseball team, which is challenging to advance to the WBC semifinals, is about to put all of its masters in the changeup in the first match of the first round of the finals against Australia, which must win unconditionally to achieve its goal.
Actual pitchers also chose pitchers who threw the changeup well.
Looking at last year’s data from Statties, a baseball statistics site, changeup pitch value 1st place Youngpyo Ko (kt wiz), 2nd place Taein Won (Samsung Lions), 5th place Yunshik Kim (LG Twins), 10th place Hyeonjong Yang (KIA Tigers) are all He wore the Taegeuk mark.
Koh Young-pyo and Won Tae-in also ranked 1st and 2nd overall in the rate of use of changeups. In this category, Hyeonjong Yang ranked 4th and Joon Sohn ranked 7th.
Kwang-hyeon Kim (SSG Landers), Bin Gwak (Doosan Bears), and Se-woong Park (Lotte Giants) are pitchers who use splitters. Although not ranked in the Statties ranking, the NC Dinos left-hander Chang-mo Koo also throws a forkball well. 안전놀이터
If you throw a changeup that goes high in the strike zone, there is a risk of getting hit by a big one, but if it is controlled low, there are few pitches that are as good for inducing a grounder as a changeup.
Last year, in the ratio of ground balls divided by fly balls, Ko Young-pyo ranked first overall with 1.86, higher than the league average (1.08).
Park Se-woong (1.76), 4th in this category, and So-Jun Sohn (1.58), 5th, also boasted the league’s top class in ground ball induction ability.
As the spring camp of 10 professional clubs has just begun, the success or failure of the match against Australia depends on how much the pitchers of the national team’s “tumblers” adapt to the WBC official ball and raise the utility value of the changeup.