S. Korea's baseball faces pitcher crisis amid generational shift

[Anchor]

With the failure to advance to the semifinals of the Premier 12, the score gap between South Korea and Taiwan in the world rankings has widened in this week's announcement.

As the need for a generational change in the starting lineup becomes urgent, players like Jeong Woo-joo, who will debut next year, are being highlighted as hope, but improvements in the talent fostering system also seem essential.

Reporter Moon Young-kyu has the story.

[Report]

Due to the poor performance in the Premier 12, the score gap with Taiwan, which was 400 points, has widened to over a thousand points, and we have truly given up the second place in Asia.

The biggest issue has been the starting pitchers, as there have been no star pitchers since Ryu Hyun-jin, Kim Kwang-hyun, and Yang Hyeon-jong, all three known as 'Ryu-Kim-Yang.'

The 'World Cup Valley' generation theory is cited as one of the reasons, with the analysis that promising young athletes gravitated toward soccer following the 2002 World Cup semifinal success.

However, while the growth of the 'Beijing Olympic Kids' has produced outstanding hitters like Lee Jung-hoo and Kim Ha-seong, it has been difficult to find quality starting pitchers.

The lack of a long-term talent development system in professional teams is pointed out as a cause.

Due to the shortage of pitching resources in the 10-team system, it is often the case that rookies are immediately used as bullpen pitchers rather than being developed as starting pitchers over time.

In this context, there is great hope as many good starting resources have been selected in this year's rookie draft, including Jeong Woo-joo and Jung Hyun-woo.

In particular, Jeong Woo-joo, who throws in the mid-150 km/h range, has also expressed a strong desire to be a starting pitcher and represent the country.

[Jeong Woo-joo/Hanwha rookie pitcher: "I want to have the title of the national team's number one starter when I am called up later, and since being a starting pitcher is my dream and something I have always hoped for..."]

The key is whether we can improve outdated training methodologies to develop excellent resources like Jeong Woo-joo into top-level starting pitchers.

Just like Takahashi, who was the starting pitcher in the Korea-Japan match, focused solely on correcting his form in the second team during his rookie year, we can only learn from Japan's systematic development system.

KBS News, Moon Young-kyu.