SSG Landers is in total trouble. That’s what baseball is. Once it starts to twist, it becomes so lethargic that you can’t find a single advantage, and once the twisted part starts to unravel, I think I can win without a hitch. But if you look at SSG’s baseball recently, winning games are hard and losing games are too easy. I can’t feel the power to overwhelm the opponent at all on the ground.
It’s a unified championship team that was clearly perfect. The main members last year and this year are almost the same, and nothing has changed much, but the performance is different. SSG, which was the lone lead early in the season, is now in third place. As of the 4th, it is 7.5 games behind LG in the first place and 1.5 games behind KIA in the fourth place. The first-half performance was second with a winning rate of 0.590 (46 wins, 1 draw and 32 losses), but the second-half performance was only sixth with a winning rate of 0.424 (14 wins and 19 losses). 스포츠토토
His team’s ERA is 4.37, ranking ninth among the 10 teams. Notably, the team’s ERA is 4.47, ranking last. He had the second-most homers in the league with 85, and he is overwhelmingly first with 482 walks. Of course, WHIP (per-inning on-base percentage) is also the lowest at 1.53.
Data is not everything, but it is an indicator that can confirm quite a lot. SSG’s fundamental concern throughout this season has been the absence of “Ace.” Last year, Wilmer Font played the role. Font was certainly a pitcher who pitched for “Ace” when he needed a team. The standard of “Ace” is not a quality start (less than three earned runs in six innings). It’s a role to keep out more innings with fewer points, but this year’s SSG got twisted from the start.
Font failed to renew his contract as he challenged the Major League, and all three foreign players were replaced. However, Eni Romero, who wanted to play the first starter role, was released due to injury after failing to throw a game, and brought in a substitute.
Kirk McCarty and Romero replacement Roenis Elias, who have been together since camp, are certainly good pitchers. His attitude on the team and performance on the mound are also observed. However, it is not enough to be considered as an ace pitcher. On top of that, even Kim Kwang-hyun has not been able to continue stable pitching due to the overlapping of various factors this season, and there is currently no clear “ace” in SSG. Winning consecutive games is one of the rare reasons even if there are consecutive losses.
SSG is the oldest team in the KBO League. The average age of registered players is 28.9 years, and Choo Shin-soo, the league’s oldest player, is also a member of SSG. There are four players in their 40s (currently calculating Korean age), including Choo Shin-soo, Kim Kang-min, Ko Hyo-joon, and Noh Kyung-eun, and surprisingly, they are still the main players.
It is true that Choo Shin-soo’s batting performance falls short of expectations, but it is difficult to replace the “leadoff” that he quit considering the on-base rate of nearly 40%. On top of that, Ko Hyo-joon and Noh Kyung-eun are still at the heart of the bullpen. This is because none of the young pitchers in their 20s throw balls that can be controlled more stably than them.
It is not about forcing players in their 40s to have a chance. This proves that promising players are not growing enough to push them out and take their place. It’s not that I didn’t have a chance, but there’s no player who took that opportunity. Now, the season performance of players in their 20s, including Oh Won-seok, Jihoon Choi and Park Sung-han, who were evaluated as the main players, is also coolly below the club’s expectations. In fact, only one of the main players is Seo Jin-yong, the closing pitcher, who is performing better than expected.
I wasn’t letting go. The introduction of a salary cap was scheduled from this year, right after the victory, and SSG made a long-term plan by signing contracts with Choo Shin-soo and Kim Kwang-hyun and signing a multi-year contract with Han Yu Island Moon Seung-won and Park Jong-hoon in advance. The salary cap, which is tight due to the large number of high-salary workers, prepared measures by choosing and focusing on FA contracts.
But the result was a miscalculation. Players who signed multi-year contracts fell into a slump together and became a sore finger for the club, and the FA strategy has also been criticized for failing to properly prepare for vulnerable positions.
SSG, which proved the formula of “investment = performance” last year with the league’s best player treatment and hot parent company support, is suffering from side effects this year as the overall mismatch occurs.
SSG made a strong decision to send the main pitching coach and the hitting coach in the first division to the second division on the 3rd, but it is pointed out that it is actually only a change of atmosphere and is not a fundamental solution.
Even on the first day of the coach’s conversion, SSG suffered a crushing defeat of 6-8 even after hitting three home runs. a lethargic four-game losing streak. Players are also clearly willing and motivated to cut their losing streak, but the results are completely different.
Now, the goal is not to win for two consecutive years, but to restore performance without falling to the worst. Until the first half of the year, there was confidence that “I can recapture the top spot again if I just take the winning streak,” but it is a lie if I am not nervous now.
The team name may have changed, but the Landers still remember the shock of the 2019 Wyverns. From a long-term perspective, it must be built up again.