Manager Kim Tae-hyung’s words for Lotte Giants’ Ko Seung-min (24).
“He’s more of a cleanup hitter than a tablesetter. I want him to grow into a No. 3 hitter.”
Ko has been the center of attention for Lotte fans this winter. After playing right field and first base in the first team, he is returning to the position he played when he made his debut: second base. He will have to fill the void left by the departure of veteran Ahn Chi-hong (Hanwha) in both offense and defense.
Ahn has been considered a “surefire batting prospect” since he was drafted in the second round in 2019. He has one of the fastest bat speeds in the league, a talent proven by his 4-for-4 performance in the second half of 2022.
A year after making the jump to the big leagues, he slumped to a 2.224 batting average and .651 OPS last year. 온라인카지노 The right field spot has been filled by rookie Yoon Dong-hee (21). She moved from right field to first base and then to second base.
This spurred him on.
He’s been in Busan for the last month of the year, and he’s been beating himself up. His daily routine is full of workouts, from PT to skill training to fitness.
When Go Seung-min, who is 1.89 meters tall, bats second, he forms a rare keystone combination with Noh Jin-hyuk, who is 1.84 meters tall. “I want to have an injury-free year this year, and I will prepare well,” he emphasized. “It’s not going as well as I thought it would,” he said of his second base training in the final camp, “I can catch and throw, but it’s not easy to work on defense and teamwork.
“I’m a 2-for-2 hitter right now. I don’t know where I’m going to play. Wherever they put me, I’m just going to work hard. It’s important to find my spot quickly.”
In the end, what is expected of Seung-min is a role in the batting order. He is well aware of this.
Up until April, he wasn’t doing too badly, batting 2-for-6 with one home run and an OPS of 0.757, but in May he slumped to 2-for-6 and hasn’t regained his form since.
“I wasn’t confident in myself. I was greedy for better results and more accurate contact, and I lost my batting balance,” he analyzed.
“At the end of the day, I’m the one doing the hitting. I was thinking too much and trying to fix it, and I lost my swing, which I’ve been working on since I was a kid. I found it again in the final camp, and now I can’t lose it.”
With his tall stature and strong physique, the talent is obvious.
But Ko Seung-min describes himself as a “hard worker.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say that I’m cocky and that I don’t play baseball seriously, but how can a player like that become a professional? I developed my skills by drawing my batting form in my diary every day when I was younger. I would watch elementary school players and compare them to me and study them. If I were to be reborn, I would still play baseball, but I don’t want to hear such stories.”
During the final camp, 바카라사이트 순위 coach Kim Tae-hyung paid special attention to Go Seung-min, giving him detailed advice such as, “When you hit, your back leg collapses and your arm falls. “He told me, ‘You can do it. You have really good abilities, skills. Don’t be discouraged,'” he recalls.
“I still vividly remember the day I hit my first home run (a three-run shot in the top of the ninth inning against Doosan on May 22, 2022). I want to create that moment again this year.”