[Choi Min-gyu's Baseball Prism] Kim Seohyun's Four Consecutive Pitches More Important Than 101 MPH Speed

'Four Consecutive Days of Play' Disappeared Even Among Pros...127 Pitches Thrown in Four Games
Young Hard-Throwing Pitchers Are the Future of K Baseball...Harsh Overuse of Young Pitchers Is Devastating
Without Rest, Injury Risk Increases...Must Not Undermine the Future of the Baseball Industry

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 16th of last month (Korean time) at Lakewood Ranch in Bradenton, Florida, USA, the unofficial highest pitching speed record in Korean baseball was set. The protagonist was Kim Seohyun (18, Seoul High School), a pitcher for the Korean youth national team. The team was playing the super round match against Japan in the 30th U18 Baseball World Cup, which had been postponed for a year due to COVID-19. Kim Seohyun’s fastball that struck out Japan’s last batter, Asano Shogo, swinging in the 7th inning was recorded at 101 mph (162.5 km/h) on the broadcast screen of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the organizer of the tournament.

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), which oversees professional baseball in Korea, and the Korea Baseball Softball Association (KBSA), the amateur organization, do not separately track pitching speeds. The unofficial highest speed in Korean baseball, based on team speed guns and stadium scoreboards, was 162 km/h by LG pitcher Ledames Liz on September 5, 2012. Among Korean pitchers, Ahn Woojin (Kiwoom) threw 160 km/h in official games in 2020 and this year, which was the highest.

Kim Seohyun’s 101 mph fastball attracted even more attention in Japan than in Korea. Right after the Korea-Japan match, it was the most viewed item in the sports section of Yahoo Japan, the largest Japanese portal site. Kim Seohyun took the mound again the next day against Taiwan. The pitch he threw was recorded at 102 mph on the broadcast screen. There is some debate about the measurement accuracy. The 101 mph pitch to Asano was shown as 97 mph (156 km/h) on the stadium scoreboard. Of course, 156 km/h is still an extremely fast pitch.

In this tournament, there was a number more important to Kim Seohyun than speed: ‘4’. Kim pitched four days in a row: on the 16th against Japan, the 17th against Taiwan, the 18th against Mexico, and the 19th in the 3rd/4th place match against Japan. He threw a total of 127 pitches, with more than 20 pitches in each of the four games.

Four consecutive days of pitching have almost disappeared even in professional baseball played by adults. In this year’s KBO League regular season, there was not a single instance of pitching four days in a row. In 2016, there were 26 instances of pitching four or more consecutive days (doubleheaders counted as two days), the most since 2013. Nine of those were with Hanwha under manager Kim Sung-geun, who was notorious for overworking pitchers. This led to intense criticism in the media about pitcher overuse. After Kim resigned in May 2017, the number of four-day pitching instances dropped sharply to two. Over the six seasons from 2017 to 2022, there were on average three instances of pitching four or more consecutive days per year in the pros.

Since 2020, there have been eight instances of pitching four or more consecutive days. The highest pitch count was 61 pitches by Jang Hyun-sik in 2021. Usually, one-point relievers facing one or two batters pitched on consecutive days. However, Kim Seohyun threw 137 pitches over four days in this tournament, pitching more than two innings twice. Even with the same pitch count, multi-inning appearances with alternating offense and defense and short rest are worse for pitchers. Kim Seohyun had returned less than a year ago after undergoing elbow ligament reconstruction surgery.

Since 2018, KBSA has limited the maximum number of pitches per day for high school pitchers to 105. Additionally, if a pitcher throws 31?45 pitches, they must rest one day; 46?60 pitches, two days; 61?75 pitches, three days; and 76 or more pitches, four days. This was to protect young pitchers’ shoulders. The regulation follows the ‘Pitch Smart’ program jointly adopted by American professional and amateur baseball in 2014.

This tournament applied a relatively relaxed rule prohibiting pitching on consecutive days if a pitcher threw more than 50 pitches. For the four semifinal teams?USA (champion), Taiwan (runner-up), Japan (3rd place), and Korea (4th place)?the number of violations of ‘Pitch Smart’ and KBSA regulations was tallied. The USA had 1 instance, Taiwan 2, Japan 4, and Korea 8. Korea had more than the other three teams combined.

It’s not just Kim Seohyun. Among the top four pitchers by pitch count, three are Korean. Kim Seohyun is 2nd with 213 pitches, Yoon Youngcheol 1st with 233 pitches, and Hwang Junseo 4th with 182 pitches. The overuse of Korean high school pitchers in international tournaments is not limited to this event. In the 27th tournament held in Nishinomiya, Japan in 2015, Korea finished 3rd. Bill James evaluated the eight teams in that tournament using a metric called ‘cumulative fatigue’. Korean pitchers Park Sejin, Lee Youngha, and Choi Choongyeon ranked 1st to 3rd respectively. As a team, Korea’s cumulative fatigue was more than twice that of 2nd place Canada. It was a dismal situation.

Before this tournament, Taiwan’s manager Zhou Zhongzu promised the team that pitcher Huang Baoluo would only pitch in two games. However, after two games, Huang pitched 17 pitches in relief in the final against the USA. Zhou publicly apologized after the tournament for this. The Korean team manager made no comment about Kim Seohyun’s four consecutive days of pitching. Coach Round Choi Seungpyo, whose son is a baseball player, expressed regret to the baseball media, saying, “Since no one asked, we had no way of knowing the thoughts in the dugout.”

Cha Myungju, a former professional baseball hold king and KBSA director, is now a pitching mechanics expert after retirement. Cha said, “Even with the same number of pitches, pitching on consecutive days with short rest is more dangerous for pitchers. Nowadays, high school pitchers throw 30?50 bullpen pitches per day, fewer than in the past. Throwing many pitches without rest increases the risk of injury.” He added, “Players rarely say they are in pain. Even if a player says they can pitch, the manager must stop them.”

Korean baseball is also following the ‘velocity revolution’ that started in the USA. This year, the average four-seam fastball speed in the KBO League was 144.2 km/h, the highest ever. Seven domestic pitchers threw four-seam fastballs exceeding 150 km/h, including Go Wooseok (153.5 km/h) and Ahn Woojin (153.4 km/h), all under 24 years old. In high school, besides Kim Seohyun, Shim Junseok of Deoksu High School threw 160 km/h in practice games this year.

Baseball fans are as enthusiastic about fastballs as they are about home runs. Florentino P?rez, president of Real Madrid, one of the world’s top football clubs, once said, “Sometimes the most expensive contract becomes the cheapest.” This means star power is crucial to the success of sports teams and industries. In this regard, the emerging young hard-throwing pitchers are the future of Korean baseball and its industry. Overuse eats away at this future, including the players’ futures.

Director of the Korea Baseball Society