“After taking two years off, I realized that if you play a lot of cards early in the season, you’ll have a lot of weapons at the end of the season.”
LG manager Yeom Kyung-yeop is a man who likes to plan his season from the final camp, spring training, to the C-D of the season. Still, baseball is a living thing, and over the course of 144 games, no one knows what will happen to anyone at any given time. With almost a year under his belt, it’s dizzying to look back at the past.
Just look at the mound. There are cards that were constants under his predecessor that don’t quite work. Starting with closer Ko Woo-seok, there are some bumps in the road. Set-up man Jung Woo-young, starters Kim Yun-sik and Lee Min-ho, and others. Casey Kelly, who has recently bounced back, has been bad all season, and Adam Plutko has been out of the picture during this crucial time.
Even for the most organized coach, it’s impossible to prepare for all these variables. Yeom has learned from his nearly 10 years of coaching and managing the Heroes, SK, and LG. In the early stages of the season, when you’re still relatively comfortable in the standings, you need to use as many players as you can without disrupting your roster as much as possible.
In fact, LG used a whopping 32 pitchers in the first team until the Gwangju KIA game on the 8th. Including Son Ju-young, who will start the second game of the doubleheader against KIA on the 9th. That’s a lot compared to other teams. It means that things didn’t go according to plan, but considering that the team’s ERA of 3.65 is first in the league, it must be said that Yeom’s adaptability, wisdom, and wisdom stood out.
“If I had stuck with Lee Min-ho, Kim Yun-sik, Jung Woo-young, and Lee Jung-yong in the bullpen, we would be in fourth place right now. If you don’t challenge yourself, you can never develop players.” The best-case scenario is that each of the plans made in the offseason will prove to be effective and feasible in spring training, and then come into play.
But if you get caught up in too many variables to be impressed, that’s when Plan B comes into play. Yoon, along with the coaching staff and the club, immediately came up with a customized solution for each individual, and the long breath saved the day. Kelly, Kim Yun-sik, who pitched well against KIA on Aug. 8, Lee Jung-yong, who transitioned from the bullpen to the starting rotation, and Im Chan-kyu, who was in the starting lineup until midseason.
In the meantime, the bullpen is loaded with new discoveries. Yoo Young-chan, Park Myung-geun, and Baek Seung-hyun are representative. Regarding Oh Seok-ju, who left the game against Suwon KT on the 7th with the score tied at 5-5, he said, “He is a pitcher we have developed in the major tours (intentionally giving prospects first-team experience and encouraging growth since he was the manager of the Heroes). His velocity is slow, but his changeup is diverse and commandable.” Ham Deok-ju also struggled after being traded, but was rehabbed by Yeom.
Some of these players may have been somewhere in Plan B, C, and D during camp. But it’s also true that they didn’t just rely on their existing resources, but dared to try out for the first team and break through. “After I left SK, I took two years off and studied various things. The team performs much better when we have diversity. Playing different cards at the beginning of the season gives me a lot of weapons at the end of the season.”
Of course, Yeom acknowledged that LG had done a better job of honing their depth before his arrival. This is the strength of the LG front office. If there are no ingredients and they are stale, even CEO Paik Jong-won can’t make a delicious dish. In fact, Yeom said, “There are many failures when you do that. More than 50 percent of the time,” he said, adding, “LG is able to do this because it has a lot of resources.”
In the end, Yeom played every hidden card and bluff for the presidency, and it seems to be paying off. It was a big risk, but he overcame it with the club’s preparation and his own know-how. As a result, LG has significantly more cards to play in the first team than in previous years.
Yeom said he would do it again if a similar situation came up in the future. He pointed out that bullpen pitchers are the least consistent and stable part of the team. “It’s hard to find a bullpen that lasts more than two or three years, unless you have a pitcher with a really solid stuff.안전놀이터
It’s no longer an era where you can rely on two or three pitchers to keep your bullpen together for years. Yeom recognized this trend in modern baseball early on and prepared for it. By the way, our partner for the four-game series, KIA, has a better bullpen this year because they don’t rely on one or two pitchers.