*This content was translated by AI.
"I'll throw it 155km."
Ha Hyun-seung (18) of Busan High School, the biggest fish in high school and one of the 2027 KBO rookie drafts, will enter the third grade season with more confidence.
Ha Hyun-seung met with Star News at the Busan High School Stadium on the 26th and said, "We prepared for the 2026 season as soon as the National Sports Festival ended last year. In order not to get hurt this year, we are striving to increase weight training and physical strength for the purpose of preventing injury," he said.
Ha Hyun-seung is a member of the big three who will compete for the first place overall along with Deoksu Eom Joon-sang (18) and Seoul High School Kim Ji-woo (18) in the 2027 KBO Rookie Draft, which will be held in the second half of this year. The physicality inherited from his father, a former member of the national high jump team, and his mother, a former member of the national long jump team, is called a blessing itself. At 194 centimeters tall, he charmed U.S. Major League (ML) scouts with incredible flexibility and speed.
On top of that, he was highly regarded as both a pitcher and a batter because of his outstanding sensibility. He was called Shohei Ohtani (32, LA Dodgers) of Busan High School for no reason. What direction will suit Ha Hyun-seung is still ongoing for ML and KBO scouts as of January 2026. Last year was the first full-time season played by both batters and pitchers. As a batter, Ha Hyun-seung marked a batting average of 0.323 (32 hits in 99 at-bats) in 26 games, five homers, 16 RBIs, 28 runs and four steals, and an on-base percentage of 0.417 slugging percentage of 0.566 OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) of 0.983.
Ha Hyun-seung, who looked back on 2025, said, "I'm satisfied that I finished a season without getting hurt," adding, "In my first year, I often didn't hit a ball that I thought I could hit." So, I focused on batting training in the winter when I was in the second grade, and I'm satisfied that my contact got better and my strength increased, so my slugging ability improved," he said. "However, as soon as I started, I hit five home runs in a month, but I couldn't hit any after that. It was a pity that I couldn't find a sense of hitting by focusing a little more on the pitcher, he added.
He also got a passing point in his first full-time season as a pitcher. He showed compliance with a 1.84 ERA with six wins and no losses in 17 ⅓, 14 walks and 64 strikeouts in 49 games, and WHIP (on-base allowance per inning) of 1.10. The ball control and each good slider, which had a jagged fastball speed but was inserted deep into the right-handed batter's body, also worked on the international stage. In recognition of its achievements, it received the Future Star Award along with Um Jun-sang at the "2025 Futures Star Awards" hosted and organized by Star News in November last year.
Ha said, "I think I've had an incredibly long year as a pitcher. "At the beginning of the season, I threw a lot of breaking balls because I couldn't get the ball speed up and the balance didn't work out," he said. "After the first half of the year, I focused on the pitcher and balanced it. It's very eventful that you get arrested naturally, and you get selected as a national team member, and you get the maximum arrest in the National Sports FestivalIt's been a season for me," he said with a smile.
Despite his outstanding performance in his first full-time as a pitcher, the scouts' evaluations were surprisingly mixed. The reason was the amount of muscle that rarely sticks and fastball restraint. Ha Hyun-seung, who finished the first-year season, was 194.2cm tall, 85kg in weight, with an average speed of 143km and a maximum of 148km. As expected, the muscles gradually gained, and it should have easily exceeded 150km. However, in September last year, the youth national team did not have any arrests near 145km.
The player himself cited physical strength as the reason. Ha Hyun-seung said, "I felt that Ohtani (who has been playing pitcher and batter for years) was really great during last year's season. It's hard to keep a steady grip as a pitcher and a batterHonestly, it was physically harder than I expected. It was really hot during the Cheongryonggi (the most unrestrained), and I didn't sleep comfortably at home, but I was slow to recover and it was difficult to manage my physical strength," he said.
Another reason for the undulating speed was the backswing. Backswing refers to an arm swing from the pitcher's wind-up movement to the release point to the release of the ball. At the start of the second year season, Ha Hyun-seung's backswing came out after his hands were tilted back. In addition, if a fast arm swing is accompanied, there are advantages in deception (hiding motion), but as it draws and uses power from a distance, the frequency of injuries may increase and there may be losses in terms of power efficiency.
Recognizing this problem, Ha tried to reduce the backswing. Currently, he is trying to maintain the backswing during the National Sports Festival, which was the most comfortable. Ha Hyun-seung finally threw a maximum speed of 152 km/h in Daejeon, the last game of his second year, exciting many scouts. Ha Hyun-seung said, "Originally, the backswing was really big. The biggest was at the beginning of last year, and the smallest was during the national team in September. The maximum speed was 148 kilometers per hour during the Cheongryong period, when the backswing was large, but in the national team, which was the shortest, it did not reach more than 146 kilometers even though it was consistently 145-146 kilometers. So, I held it in the middle, but I tried to maintain the current feeling as much as possible because the ball control was good and the ball control was good," he explained.
At last, the muscles began to gain strength in earnest. Ha Hyun-seung currently weighs 95kg, up 10kg from this time last year, showing a clear growth in power. Naturally, he gained confidence. He is determined not to give up his entry into the Major League as well as the first overall 2027 KBO rookie draft.
Ha Hyun-seung said, "Actually, until last year, I was thin and weak, so I was worried that I would be able to adapt well even if I went to the United States. But this year, I got better and more confident," he said with strength. Of course, I haven't played the season yet, and I'm careful to say anything because I haven't improved my performance. But it's true that I'm thinking of going as soon as I get a good offer from the Major League," he added.
However, he said that the priority is to achieve good results with Busan High School this year. This year, Busan High School has a relatively weak lineup, so Ha Hyun-seung will help as a designated hitter. The same is true that there is no firm ace yet, so Ha Hyun-seung takes the training weight to the ratio of pitcher 8 and batter 2. Ha Hyun-seung said, "The biggest goal is not to get hurt. He also said, "I want to win the national championship because this is my last year in high school," adding, "Last year, I showed 152km in the last game, but this year, I will throw 155km when I am in good condition."
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*This content was translated by AI.
