Will the KIA Tigers, whose performance was disappointing compared to their power, be able to show a different side in the new season? First of all, off-season activities raise expectations. Power leakage was minimized and efforts were made to recruit new foreign players.
KIA unfortunately failed to advance to the postseason in 6th place with 73 wins, 2 draws, and 69 losses (0.514) in last year’s regular season. They had a close game with the 5th place Doosan Bears (74 wins, 2 draws, 68 losses, 0.514) until the end, but fall baseball was canceled by one game.
If we look at KIA’s performance last season in terms of ‘Pythagorian expected win rate’, the disappointment is even greater. This is because I was not able to achieve the results I had.
The Pythagorean winning percentage was created by Bill James, who invented the baseball statistics ‘Sabermetrics’, and is calculated by substituting a team’s runs scored and runs conceded in a season using the formula ‘Scores²÷ (Scores²+Concedes²)’. It is a formula based on the fact that many goals and few conceded goals lead to victory, and it is highly reliable as the numbers are often similar to the actual winning percentage.
KIA, which scored 726 points and conceded 650 runs last year, has a Pythagorean winning percentage of 0.555, second only to the championship-winning LG Twins (0.613). This means that even though he had a stable two-stroke power, he was unable to translate it into an actual win rate.
KIA Tigers Choi Hyeong-woo.
LG, KIA, NC, KT, and Doosan ranked 1st to 5th in Pythagorean winning percentage, but among them, KIA was the only team not in the top 5 in the actual rankings. The difference from the actual winning percentage (0.514) reached 0.041, which was the largest.
Conversely, SSG Landers recorded a Pythagorean winning percentage of 0.470, but advanced to the postseason with an actual winning percentage of 0.539.
KIA is classified as a strong team in the new season as well. The domestic starting lineup, including Hyeon-jong Yang, Ui-ri Lee, and Young-cheol Yoon, is solid, and the bullpen lineup including Hae-young Jeong, Sang-hyun Jeon, Lim Ki-young, and Ji-min Choi are also top-tier. The batting lineup consisting of Na Seong-beom, Choi Hyeong-woo, Kim Sun-bin, and Kim Do-young is also of high quality.
As long as you maintain your existing capabilities, you can expect good results.
In fact, so far in the offseason, the focus has been on refining the existing team rather than recruiting new players. As soon as the regular season ended, they signed a non-FA multi-year contract with Kim Tae-gun, erasing concerns about the catcher’s vacancy, and also appointed free agents Kim Sun-bin and Ko Jong-wook. The contract renewal with foreign hitter Socrates Brito was also completed.
Recently, veteran Choi Hyung-woo signed the oldest non-FA multi-year contract in history.
Will Crow, the new foreign pitcher for the KIA Tigers.
Efforts are also being made to recruit foreign pitchers, who became the team’s ‘Achilles heel’ last season due to frequent injuries and poor performance. Although it is taking a bit longer than other teams, right-hander Will Crowe was recruited as the ‘No. 1 starter’ on the 7th.
Crow is a pitcher who played as a big leaguer until relatively recently, playing 60 games and 76 innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2022. Although he didn’t have much fun in the big leagues, he can be expected to perform at an ace level in the KBO league.
There has been no news of another foreign pitcher to support Crowe. KIA plans to focus on finding a stable foreign player, as opposed to Crow, who is more of a fireballer. It is expected that the foreign contract will be finalized before spring training. 토토사이트