The WBC (World Baseball Classic), known to be the most renowned national baseball competition, is scheduled to be held in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States, starting on March 8, 2023, at KST. The anticipation is high after several baseball superstars such as Shohei Ohtani emerged as one of the biggest game changers in all of baseball before the last two seasons of MLB. This WBC is also gathering much more attention looking at the national teams’ rosters. There’s everyone’s favorite: the United States, the usual runner-up: Japan, and the usual dark horse: Dominican Republic. Other than that, many more teams compete in the WBC such as the Czech Republic, Italy, and Nicaragua. For Korean citizens, it’s no question that there will be many difficulties the Korean national team will face, matching against these superior rosters. With the last WBC being held in 2017, how many changes would have been made to the Korean national team roster?

First off, in the coaching staff, it’s quite possibly safe to say that every single one of the coaching staff has been renewed to a completely different one. The most significant change may be seen in the managerial spot and the hitting coach spot; Insik Kim to Kang-Chul Lee, and Soon-Chol Lee to Ki-Tai Kim. As the hitting and pitching trends in KBO had a big change in the grand scheme of things, it seems that the overall change regarding the whole coaching staff was no exception to the wave of a new baseball era incoming.

Second, the pitching staff. The part that stands out the most is that the former St. Louis Cardinals-bound southpaw Kwanghyun Kim is back on the national team roster after he was not included in the 2017 roster via his Tommy John Surgery. Other than that, the bullpen arms have improved very much, considering the 2017 bullpen was filled with much older veterans. The 2023 roster seems to have several youngster bullpen arms who throw at least a fastball of 95 miles per hour. There also have been three more new southpaws-Euilee Lee, Chang-Mo Koo, and Yun-Sik Kim, who all had their fantastic season in 2022, gathering attention from the fans. Before the fall of Seung-Hwan Oh’s performance, it seems that Woo-Suk Go, the “Korean Aroldis Chapman”, will take his spot as the new closer for the Korean National Team, ultimately looking for a spot to eventually have a spot at the big leagues.

The analysis of the infielders and outfielders will be continued in part two.

최민재 강남포스트 학생기자  webmaster@ignnews.kr

<저작권자 © 강남포스트, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지>