“It was an opportunity for me to reflect as a senior before being a coach. It gave me an opportunity to think about whether the coach compromised first in order not to be criticized.”

This is what the pitching coach of a certain team said when Korean baseball performed below expectations in the World Baseball Classic (WBC).

In this tournament, Korea collapsed due to uneasiness on the mound. The possibility of advancing to the quarterfinals has not completely disappeared yet, but it is difficult to say that this tournament is a success just because it has been driven so far.

The biggest problem raised was the control of the young players.

There may have been problems with the pressure of international competitions or the official ball, but the fact that they tried to compete by leading a player who could not even throw a strike as the national team was a problem in itself.

In their own way, in the KBO League, the national team was formed by gathering players who said they were long, but very few players performed as expected.

It is a common view that control is created only after a lot of training.

But in recent years, I’ve rarely heard of pitchers training like hell. Doosan coach Lee Seung-yeop and Samsung coach Park Jin-man, who took office as coaches this season, aimed for intensive training, but most of the clubs focused on reducing the amount of training somehow.

A pitching coach said, “Lee Seung-yeop and Park Jin-man are former top star players with a solid position in the team. I have no choice but to speak well. The amount of training kept decreasing as the leaders who did not have the name value were paying attention here and there. Because the evaluation of the players is important, there were many cases where I only focused on making the players comfortable. As a result, I think such indolence has led to today’s failure.”

Pitching coach B said,안전놀이터 “I think it’s time to think about the reason why our players are in better physical condition, but they are far behind Japanese pitchers in speed and control. It is said that Japan has also reduced the amount of training, but it is not comparable to Korea. Camp 1000 pitches are basically digested. Our baseball is followed by the ghost of ‘overkill’. There is a widespread perception that the best map is the one that protects. The current reality is that managing the number of pitches is regarded as the most important thing for pitching coaches. No one wants to cross that limit. Because it doesn’t sound good. Players these days are the video generation. There are many cases in which advanced theories are learned from an early age by using YouTube and other means. Even though it doesn’t suit him, he spends a lot of time copying the way the top stars in the major leagues did. The coach’s words are losing more power. I don’t mean to rush and scold them unconditionally, but I think an environment where coaches can teach the players like a coach should be created. In the end, I think that our cowardly seniors, including myself, compromised with reality led to today’s great failure.”

The strike zone has been widened and the distance of the official ball has decreased. At the beginning of the implementation, it seemed to work to some extent. However, from some point on, the hitters began to chase little by little. Now, it is becoming difficult to guarantee that the pitcher has an advantage.

Where is Korean baseball heading now? It can be said that many ‘cowardly seniors’ who hate to hear or say bitter things and are only interested in preserving their positions have a lot of responsibility.

This is why the confessions of the previous two coaches should be pondered once again.