Good team performance and managing the young pitcher’s shoulder, he has to do both. A difficult homework was placed in front of the KIA Tigers.
The player with the most innings (as of the 23rd) among rookie pitchers this season is KIA left-hander Yoon Young-cheol (19). He pitched in 18 games (17 starts) and blocked 89 innings. Including the record for two futures league games (13 innings), it is 102 innings.
In 2022, when he was a senior in high school (Chungam High School), Yoon Young-chul played a total of 65 1/3 innings in a tournament hosted by the Korea Baseball Softball Federation (KBSA). At the Youth World Championships in September, he stopped 17 1/3 innings.
KIA did not take Yoon Young-cheol to the finishing camp held in Jeju Island last November. This is because he judged that he threw a lot of balls compared to other pitchers last year. Yoon Young-cheol digested a program focused on physical training at his home stadium (Kia Champions Field, Gwangju).
After joining the KIA, Yoon Young-cheol is taking much more systematic body care than last year when he was in high school. He also took time to reorganize after missing one first-team entry in June.
Even considering this point, there is a voice that management of the back is necessary. Yoon Young-cheol has already thrown 20 more innings than last year. KIA has more than 40 games left in the regular season. Assuming that Yoon Young-cheol plays 5 innings per game, if he plays all the remaining starting rotations, he will go over 140 innings.
Yoon Young-chul’s team senior and Lee Eui-ri played 94 and 2/3 innings in the KBO League regular season in his first year of debut (2021) and 10 innings at the Tokyo Olympics. So Joon So (KT Wiz), the rookie of the year in 2020, also blocked 133 innings that year. Joon Sohn suffered from a decrease in restraint in 2021 and struggled.안전놀이터
In his professional debut season, he played far more innings than he did in high school, and the accumulated fatigue worked the following year. Tom Verducci, a well-known MLB columnist, claims that pitchers under the age of 25 are more likely to be exposed to injury risk if they pitch at least 30 more innings compared to the previous year.
The problem is the KIA situation. Up until the 22nd, they recorded 48 wins, 2 draws and 50 losses, and are in the 5th to 7th places. The competition to advance to the postseason (PS) is in full swing. There is no room for power distribution.
The game schedule is also tight. As of the 23rd, 18 games were not played due to rain. Even after mid-September, there will be few holidays. There are even more games postponed on the road than at home. Even the team’s main starting pitcher Eui-ri Lee will be selected for the national team at the Asian Games (AG) in Hangzhou, which will be held at the end of September. There are no suitable substitutes.
KIA is a team that aims to win. Entering the PS is to protect the last pride. The competition for the top 5 is expected to continue until the final match of the regular season. In this situation, it seems difficult to remove Yun Young-chul from the starting lineup. KIA’s concerns are growing.