“KIA baseball should be more boring” Why?
“KIA baseball should be more boring than 2022.”
I heard a story like this while talking to a baseball official recently. At first, I didn’t understand. At first glance, it is hard to accept that ‘fun’ is omitted from the flow of modern baseball that pursues ‘fun baseball, interesting baseball’.
However, looking back at KIA’s game patterns and processes last year, it was also a convincing statement. It is true that the 2023 season KIA needs a more comfortable process of’stable victories in an obvious flow’. It is because the victories of that stable performance are the way to become a stronger team in the end.
Last year, KIA showed a very large difference in performance by game and power in pitching records, and even within the game, the performance in the early, middle, and second half appeared differently. There were many thrilling reversal processes, but there were also many cases where a game in which a large number of points was scored was allowed to be tied or overturned.
Like this, the roller coaster-like performance will eventually have a negative impact on the winning rate of the pennant race. In fact, KIA ranked first in the win rate (0.692 win rate) that month with 18 wins and 8 losses in May of last year, but between April and September, the months with a win rate of 50% or more were May and July (50% win rate) and 7th. It was only in October (4 wins, 3 losses, 0.571 win rate) that only games were played.
Of course, the lack of consecutive losses and the fact that the team does not fall into a major slump is a positive factor, but even in the first half and the second half, the strength of the team changed dramatically.
In particular, that aspect stood out on the mound, and in the first half, the KIA bullpen performed well with a team salvation average of 3.98, which was the 4th in the league. However, the starters struggled with an ERA of 4.31, ninth in the first half, and failed to play many innings, which affected the bullpen in the second half. In the end, as key players such as ‘Triple J’ suffered rope injuries in the second half, the average ERA for salvation during the period fell to 9th place with 5.70.
On the other hand, the KIA starting lineup, which was busy with enduring in the first half, became the team’s swan by recording a 3.38 grade, which was second in the league, in the second half due to injuries and the addition of substitute foreign pitchers. Compared to the first half, the team’s strengths and weaknesses were dramatically reversed in the second half. There is a causal relationship in which the starting lineup, which was poor in the first half, eventually had an adverse effect on the bullpen, but the lack of planning of the team strategy to such an extent that it had a negative effect on the long-term operation of the season. 카지노
There were problems not only with the mound but also with the batting line. The KIA team batting line, which ranked first in the overall OPS in 2022, lacked the detail and power of team betting when looking at detailed situational indicators. It means that the cohesion of the team that brings it to the result has declined despite the outstanding ability.
First of all, KIA ranked first in OPS, the most symbolic hitting indicator, but the team scored 676 RBIs, falling short of SSG (682 RBIs).
This is because even in the probability of converting runners to RBIs, SSG (17.4%) in first place and LG (17.1%) in second place only finished in third place (16.9%). Last year’s KIA attack proved that there were many cases where they went on base and advanced a lot, but could not connect to the RBI.
In that respect, the remaining base record was also the second highest in the league (2407) in KIA, following Kiwoom (2422). It means that he created relatively many chances, but it can also mean that he left as many runners on base as Kiwoom, who had no solvers, except for some players.
More specifically, KIA ranks 7th in the category with 65.2% of the batting percentage that the third base runner before the 2nd runner managed to score. Since the team color and the ability of the players themselves are advantageous to strong attacks, they chose a number of strategies aimed at big innings, and it is true that this was successful, but it could also mean that they missed scoring situations that could easily go at many moments.
In addition, KIA also ranked 4th in the league with 55.8% of the successful second base situation. In addition, even if KIA increases the outcount, most of the offensive indicators that advance base runners on base are in the middle, which is not proportional to the good results of the classic indicators.
Although these indicators do not completely represent the team betting ability, they can be sufficiently meaningful indicators. In the end, last year’s KIA lacked team batting ability, or did not choose such a situation. That’s why I scored a lot of goals throughout the season, but there were many cases where I played a difficult game because I didn’t score in a situation where I needed an extra goal at the beginning of the game. Especially at the end of the season, many such games came out.
The same was true for each game. While playing a good game, on the day of scoring a lot, he showed the appearance of driving the opposing pitchers without mercy, but when the opposing ace came out or key bullpens came out, he showed a silent weakness, showing a stark temperature for each game.
Coming back, the meaning of the words ‘KIA’s baseball should be more boring’ in the 2023 season can be connected with the meaning of ‘we have to play baseball with a calculation’.
The aspect of team strategy or detail is the share of choice between the KIA coaching staff and the KIA players. However, KIA can also stand as a strong team only when it can follow and evolve while following the obvious victory patterns of past strong teams with reduced variation by game.
If the starting pitcher plays long innings, the team makes it when it can score points even without big innings, and the bullpen reliably maintains a lead, the game may become boring, but a certain victory is guaranteed. And that victory, paradoxically, could guarantee fans more joy and fun.