*This content was translated by AI.
At the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC), the South Korean national baseball team felt the wall of the world.
In the second round (quarterfinals) of the tournament, which they reached for the first time in nine years, Korea was shut out 0-10 and lost via a 7-inning cold game to Christopher Sanchez (30, Dominican Republic), a left-handed pitcher with a fastball averaging 95.2 mph (about 153.2 km/h). Korean batters swung and missed at Sanchez's high-speed sinker, sharp slider, and changeup a total of 18 times. After returning home, Korean batters expressed shock over Sanchez's pitches, saying they were "on another level."
However, the very pitches that made Korean batters feel they were on another level were rarely shown by the Korean mound to opposing batters during this tournament. Velocity was an intuitive indicator of the gap between world baseball and Korean baseball. According to the U.S. baseball statistics media Baseball Savant, the average velocity of Korean pitchers' fastball series (four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter) in this tournament was 90.1 mph (about 145 km/h), ranking 18th out of 20 teams in the main tournament and placing them at the world's lowest level. This was a significant gap not only from first-place Dominican Republic's 95.6 mph (about 153.9 km/h) but also from fourth-place Japan's 94 mph (about 151.3 km/h) and eighth-place Taiwan's 92.9 mph (about 149.5 km/h).
However, there are also criticisms that pursuing only high velocity leads to neglecting the basics of pitching, such as the completion of breaking balls and control. This is also why promising players who were evaluated as top-tier in amateur baseball fail to immediately stand out in professional baseball.
High school coach A said in a phone interview with StarNews after the 2026 WBC concluded: "It seems there was no pitcher who knew how to fight like Ryu Hyun-jin. Even without fast pitches, pitchers must be able to battle batters, but there are few such players these days. In past WBC tournaments, neither Ryu Hyun-jin nor Yoon Seok-min had exceptionally fast pitches. Yet they cooked major league players with changeups and sliders. Veterans like Kim Byung-hyun, Bong Jung-keun, Kim Sun-woo, and Koo Dae-sung also managed to create good results by securing favorable ball counts even when their strength waned. But I have never seen pitchers these days who can secure favorable ball counts in the first place."
The "fighting" that Coach A referred to is not simply fighting spirit. It is the ability to strike out on the first pitch, throw breaking balls from a favorable count, and steal batters' timing even on days when fast pitches do not work. He pointed out: "These days, pitchers are drafted just because they have high speed. In the past, pitchers who threw 150 km/h were players who knew how to battle batters, so they succeeded. But now it seems that having speed is enough, and they focus only on performance. As a result, detailed aspects disappear, and they end up using only raw power wildly, often leading to injuries."
The problem is that while Korean baseball has long chased velocity, it failed to develop the control and breaking ball completion necessary to utilize that velocity in actual games. Although they tried hard to make use of promising players who occasionally throw over 155 mph every few years, pitchers with both high velocity and good control as expected have not easily emerged.
Conversely, in Japanese and Taiwanese baseball, pitchers with both strong velocity and good control have consistently emerged, leaving Korean baseball indecisive. Scouts domestically and abroad are now looking for pitchers who may lack a bit of velocity but possess excellent breaking ball completion and control. They no longer evaluate pitchers based solely on the highest velocity recorded once or twice a year. The calculation is that any missing velocity can be somewhat compensated through physical growth and improvements in pitching mechanics.
At amateur baseball sites, it is said that control and velocity are no longer a matter of choice in player development. MLB scout B also stated that finding solutions for pitcher development within the domestic system alone is difficult. Scout B noted: "Every time an international tournament ends, there is talk about velocity. Honestly, what Korean prospects lack most is control. It is true that velocity is a very big factor in dominating batters. But I do not think Korea lost this WBC because of low velocity."
He continued: "I see many players trying to artificially increase their velocity to enter professional baseball. They can increase their velocity like NPB players. However, compared to NPB players, their control is significantly inferior. We must find a way to possess both control and velocity. In that regard, the institutional barriers preventing Korean prospects from advancing overseas also feel regrettable. They should be able to learn more in an environment where they can grow further, yet they are settling for less."
[Amateur Baseball Speaks] Indecisive Korean baseball: Is the world's lowest velocity the only problem?
① "I can't see a pitcher who fights like Ryu Hyun-jin": The painful gap in control, worse than the world's lowest velocity, why is Korean baseball so indecisive?
② "Repetitive training is not the answer" Throw as much as possible for good control? Breaking Korean baseball stereotypes... American baseball focuses on variability
③ How did 178cm Yamamoto throw a 159 mph fastball without weights? Not imitation, but customized drills; Korean prospects were also impressed
④ "There are many pitchers who throw 150 km/h": The bubble of fastballs hidden by wooden bats, Korean baseball trapped in a paradigm from 22 years ago
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*This content was translated by AI.
