"There are many players who throw 150km." Fastball Bubble Made by Namu Bat, Korean Baseball Trapped in Paradigm 22 years ago [Maybe baseball says ④]

*This content was translated by AI.

Korea Baseball once again realized the gap with world baseball at the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC). Amid the opinion that pitchers need to grow qualitatively, the transition to high school baseball's non-wood bat has emerged as one of the alternatives.

The most intuitive indicator of this WBC was restraint. According to Baseball Servant, a U.S. baseball statistics media outlet, the average speed of Korean pitchers in the fastball series (four-seam fastballs, sinkers, and cutters) was 90.1 miles per hour, ranking 18th among the 20 teams in the finals and the lowest in the world. However, the opinion of the field is that Korea also has a thin player base, so it is less felt, and fastball pitchers are coming out little by little.

In a recent phone call with Star News, high school manager A said, "This year alone, more than 20 pitchers were throwing 150km/h across the country. It may not be the average restraint, but it is clear that the restraint has been accelerated. Three to four years ago, hitters couldn't chase the bat even if it exceeded 145 kilometers per hour, but now they are better at hitting fast balls. That's how much batters have become accustomed to fast-forwarding," he said.

The opinions of experts were also with the field. B, a sports trainer in Korea, said, "The number of arrests will continue to increase in the future. In the meantime, Korean baseball prospects have only imitated coaches and seniors at the stage of building their bodies and copied them collectively regardless of individual characteristics, he said.

At the same time, "From around 2004-2005, it is a generation that has become accustomed to using private lesson halls from the beginning of baseball (third to fourth graders in elementary school). As he learned to use his body systematically from such a young age, he mastered weight training at the time of graduation from middle school. In that way, the basic quality of children's use of their bodies is increasing, so more pitchers who throw fast balls will come out in the future, he stressed.

There are also many voices saying that through this tournament, we should pay as much attention to completeness as we do to our pitchers. A fast ball with a maximum speed of 150km/h is a ball that is difficult to hit at the baseball level, so it is often put in the strike zone and hit hard. High school manager C said, "I don't think there was a pitcher who knew how to fight like Ryu Hyun-jin in this WBC. I have to be a pitcher who knows how to fight batters even if it's not a fast ball, but there aren't many players like that these days," he lamented.

The wooden bat introduced to the high school baseball field by the Korea Baseball Association (currently the Korea Baseball Softball Association) in 2004 is considered one of the factors that created the bubble of high school baseball fastball. The wooden bat currently used has low repulsion, making it difficult to lead to long balls unless it is a regular hit. As a result, pitchers with strong pitches of 150 kilometers per hour do not need water fights or sophisticated ball control to take away the timing of the batter.

This is not irrelevant to the flow of the pitching tagger that has been going on for several years. Most of the players and parents choose pitchers who are likely to be nominated if they have talent in both pitching and hitting. On the other hand, field prospects are more likely to be named as top candidates if they are good at both batting and defense. Unlike pitchers who only need gloves, the price of wooden bats, which is at least 300,000 won, is also burdensome for batters.

High school coach A said, "Even if the ball comes into the middle, weak batters easily get out if they hit a wooden bat. However, the aluminum bat has a hit even though the timing is late. At first, pitchers may struggle, but to survive, they have to control their control and then they can get better," he said.

The non-wood bat and aluminum bat we are talking about now are different from the can bats commonly used in coin batting areas. The non-wood bat is made of non-wood materials such as alloys (alloy), carbon fibers (composite), hybrids, etc. It is relatively more durable than a wooden bat and has uniform performance because it can artificially control the quality. Youth players in middle school and under are already using alloy bats that control their repulsion. Alloy bat is more expensive than a single wooden bat, but one easily lasts a year.

Opinions have been steadily raised to change to non-wood bats at the site. Until now, the main basis for the argument that it should be changed to a non-wood bat has been the price of expensive wooden bats. Recently, wooden bats that amateur baseball players are looking for have been priced between 300,000 won and 600,000 won each due to rising exchange rates and soaring raw material prices. The batting prospects are always worried because the bat breaks even if it is missed.

However, some say that more solid justification and discussion are needed to change the old paradigm. High school coach D said, "When it changed to a wooden bat 20 years ago, the justification was that children were hurt by strong hits made by aluminum bats. At that time, there was an accident, so there was no difficulty in changing it to a wooden bat," he recalled.

"I'm not against changing to a non-wood bat either. On the methodological front, I agree. However, it is not appropriate to switch to a non-wood bat simply because of the cost. We should discuss and proceed with certain standards and discussions, such as the ratio of domestic and foreign companies and what to do with the appropriate rebound coefficient, he stressed.

There is a consensus that the increasing price of wooden bats is burdensome to students. However, the introduction of non-wood bat could lead to a gap with the strong team from the perspective of the weak team against the immediate pitchers, so they could not try to change prematurely. In fact, the current system was maintained last year, with the wooden bat leading by one vote in the non-wood bat conversion vote held at the National Council of High School Baseball Supervisors.

However, with this WBC competition, there is also an atmosphere that changes can no longer be delayed. It was delayed for one reason or another, leading to the loss of international competitiveness that resulted in the elimination of the first round for three consecutive WBC tournaments and the second consecutive defeat against Taiwan in the international tournament. The Dominican Republic, which is full of major league players, was defeated by 0-10 cold games. The continued loss of international competitiveness will inevitably have an adverse impact on the success of professional baseball and the expansion of the base of possibly baseball, so the overall system structure needs to be improved.

The non-wood bat conversion could be the first step. High school manager A said, "The United States and Japan, which are said to be the best players in baseball, are already using non-wood bats. At best, they are children who used aluminum bats in middle school right now to turn them again after adapting to the wooden bat," he pointed out. "Unlike in the past, the repulsive force can be controlled. That's how batters can turn their bats more confidently than wooden bats. Pitchers pay more attention to ball control and breaking balls to win it, and then our baseball can develop further," he said with strength.

[Probably baseball says] Is it only a matter of Korean baseball's world-lowest arrest

① "No pitcher knows how to fight like Ryu Hyun-jin." It's not a matter of "only the world's lowest arrest" in Korean baseball

② "It's not a repetitive training answer." Throw a lot of balls for good control? Korea Baseball Prejudice Breaks... U.S. Baseball Noting Variability

③ 172cm Yamamoto's 159km fastball 'How' without weight... A different level of training for the U.S. and Korea prospects were also impressed.

④ "There are many players who throw 150km." Fastball Bubble Made by Namu Bat, Korean Baseball Trapped in Paradigm 22 years ago

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*This content was translated by AI.