Kia Tigers, last year's champion, in a slump
Kia Tigers, last year's champion, in a slump
Blog Article
Winning the KBO League for two consecutive years is becoming an "impossible mission." To find the last back-to-back winning team in the KBO Almanac, we have to go back to the Doosan Bears from 2015 to 2016. The unified winning team for consecutive seasons also disappeared for 10 years after the 2011-2014 Samsung Lions. Numerous championship teams, from the KIA Tigers in 2017 to the LG Twins in 2023, tried to win the next season, but all the results failed.메이저사이트
The reason why it is difficult to win consecutive championships is that it is not easy to reproduce the same overall success as the winning season in the next year. First of all, in the professional baseball system where there is a power equalization system such as the FA, it is difficult to retain the winning members until the next year. Even if they manage to keep the winning members, there is no guarantee that these players will maintain the same skills and conditions as the winning season in the next year.
Former general manager Ryu Sun-kyu, who led SSG Landers' "Wire-to-Wire Win" in 2022, said, "Almost the winning team will suffer from the aftereffects of next season." Former general manager Ryu said, "To win, teams that are eliminated from fall baseball must make all-out efforts until the end of October when they rest or have a finishing training session. As a result, there are a lot of injuries in the year after winning the championship, and many players are in poor condition compared to previous years. In particular, there are many cases where ball power is not as good as before among pitchers."
Sometimes, the problem is not the body but the mind. In baseball, winning a championship is possible only when players with strong individuality unite in the spirit of "team first" under the same goal, sacrifice themselves and concentrate on the game. It is not easy to repeat such collective experiences for two consecutive years. "It is true that team members' sense of goal sometimes becomes somewhat loose after winning a championship," KBSN Sports Commentator Jeon Joon-ho said.
Lastly, the "energy of the universe," or "luck," cannot be ignored. As a team plays every season, some teams get lucky a lot and everything goes as planned. In such a team, fewer people get injured (injuries are mostly about luck), and even if there are injured, unexpected replacement players appear at unexpected timing, becoming heroes. Kia, the champion of last year's team, had a batting average of 0.308 and a pinch-hitter of 0.340 with the capacity of Kia's batters, but statistically speaking, it is highly unlikely that such magic will unfold on the same team for two consecutive years.
an impossible mission to win back-to-back games
Perhaps this is why? Kia is also going through a hard time in the early days of the season, as it had no doubt about its winning the title for two consecutive years by banking on its "absolute first-place finish." Before the season's opening, most experts, forecasting system, and Sujeong Maru expected Kia to win the title by an overwhelming margin. In a survey of five experts and five reporters conducted by the YouTube channel "Keystone Play," all 10 players picked Kia as No. 1. While its capacity remained almost the same last year, it was expected that the addition of new foreign hitter Patrick Wisdom would act as a plus alpha. Even considering the aftereffects of the championship, many critics say that the team has strong capability and a strong base of players to compensate for such negative impact.
In the early days of this season, however, Kia's performance was in stark contrast to expectations. After winning the opening game, the team showed sluggish performance with one win and five losses in six games, including one win and two losses at home against Kiwoom, the team's candidate for the lowest place by all experts. The team temporarily fell to the bottom in early April. As of April 28, Kia had 13 wins and 15 losses and a winning rate of 0.464 (7th), which is less than even 50%.
Injuries are the primary reason KIA is weaker than expected. Last year's MVP Kim Do-young was carried out due to a hamstring injury from the opening game. On top of that, the three main infielders, including shortstop Park Chan-ho and second baseman Kim Sun-bin, are leaving the team, which is a demonic prank. Pitchers also reported injuries. Kwak Do-gyu, who played as a must-win card for the left-hander bullpen last year, was out for the season after complaining of elbow pain and getting on the operating table after suffering from poor performance in the early stages. "The player with the highest WAR escaped from the batting line and bullpen," SBS Sports Commentator Lee Taek-geun said.
Commentator Jeon Joon-ho said, "It seems that KIA pitchers' pace came up a bit late. While pitchers are not 100 percent in condition, the game to win in the early days of the season is turned upside down." One commentator anonymously pointed out, "Overall, players were late in preparing for the season, and I think they were complacent about some things." In a related development, former general manager Ryu Sun-kyu said, "Some say it is loose and not ready, but I think it depends on what angle you look at it. Wouldn't it be considered that injury or slow pace increase can also be seen as a side effect of the championship?"
Some raise doubts that the team may suffer aftereffects of the championship, such as mood of the team, teamwork and leadership issues. However, a baseball player who is well aware of Kia's situation said, "I checked with close players and coaches because there were too many people talking, but there are no internal problems as if I am talking outside. We are still maintaining a good mood as we did last year, with the coaching staff and seniors at the center."
Commentator Jeon Joon-ho said, "If it were any other coach, I might be anxious about the initial slump, but I don't see that in Lee Bum-ho." Veteran Choi Hyung-woo said in an interview on the victory of the game on April 20, "I personally didn't take it seriously, but people were going crazy (because of the poor performance in the beginning)," adding, "Of course, No. 1 LG is good, but there is not much difference to No. 2. I didn't think it was such a big crisis."
Kia, a popular national baseball team, is a team that says "all kinds of things" even when its performance is slightly poor. When an injured player returns and the team's performance is back on track, noise around the team will naturally subside. Until now, most experts seem to view Kia's early slump as a temporary surprise. Jeon Jun-ho, a member of the committee, predicted, "As the season progresses, the team will show good performance, and the team will engage in fierce competition from around June." Lee Taek-geun, a member of the committee, also said, "KIA is a very powerful team in itself. We still have a lot of games to play. I'm sure we'll go up when the time comes."