The Korean national baseball team, the first champion of the tournament, failed to advance to the semifinals.
Korea beat Australia 5-2 in the fifth preliminary match of Group B of the 2024 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier 12 tournament held at Tianmu Stadium in Taipei, Taiwan on Sunday. Kim Do-young, who swept four RBIs including a two-run homer, shone all through. However, Korea already failed to advance to the Super Round (semi-finals) on the previous day. Japan beat Cuba and Taiwan beat Australia to advance to the Super Round on Wednesday, ranking first and second in Group B, respectively.
There were some conditions that made it difficult for the national baseball team to perform well. The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), which advocated the need for a generational change of the national team, set up a roster centered on young players in this year’s event as well. His skills were inferior to those of the previous national team, which was comprised of the best players regardless of age. What’s worse, key pitchers and hitters left the national team ahead of the competition due to injury or admission to a training center.
However, there is a question mark over whether the team utilized 100 percent of its entry. Ryu Joong-il, the coach of the Korean national baseball team, has agonized over the order of batting at the upcoming games for a long time. “I have decided on the first hitter (Hong Chang-ki) and the third hitter (Kim Do-young). I am agonizing over the second hitter’s order. I like strong second hitter,” Ryu said. Ryu chose Song Seong-moon as he had a batting average of 0.340 179 hits, 19 homers, 21 steals, and 104 RBIs during the regular season. He was a top-rated hitter who contributed a win against a substitute player (0.927 on-base plus slugging) in the 8th place (OPS) of this season’s On-base percentage (on-base plus slugging percentage), and was ranked 4th (5.76 in terms of Sports 2I). 바카라사이트
“Strong No. 2” ended with one game. As Song had no hit in four times at bat against Taiwan, the first game, Ryu Joong-il changed his mind. Instead, he deployed Shin Min-jae, who had nine times at bat (221 times at bat) more than he had in two times at his LG Twins. His batting average (0.297) and slugging percentage (0.357) were significantly lower than Song’s (0.518) during the regular season, but he only posted a batting average of 0.154 (2 hits at 12 times at bat) throughout the four games. With Shin’s silence, the offense power of Hong Chang-ki (on-base percentage of 0.409) and Kim Do-young (on-base percentage of 0.875 three home runs), who played at No. 1 and No. 3 during the first five games, did not produce synergistic effects.
The appointment of Song also does not strictly correspond to the definition of No. 2. Strong hitter theory that emerged in the Major League Baseball (MLB) argues that the best hitter should be used as No. 2, not a batter with relatively good attack strength. “As of 2015, when the first and second batters get their fifth at-bat (team 38 at-bats), the winning rate and score increase,” said Keith Law, author of “Smart Baseball.” The best hitters should take the table setter to take one more at-bat.
Recently, MLB’s leading batters, Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, and Aaron Judge, also tend to be the first and second batters. In terms of the average OPS by MLB batting order this year, the first hitter (0.739) and the second hitter (0.755) were lower than the third hitter (0.777), but higher than the fourth hitter (0.737) and the fifth hitter (0.715).
“The best batting order will only make you gain 10 to 15 points more in a season (162 games) than the average batting order,” Law said, “The overall effect (strong No. 2) is insufficient, but it is valuable because it is a strategy that can make a profit without cost.”
