Kiwoom Decided to Replace Foreigners Will Boost a Rebound by Strengthening Starting Staff
Kiwoom Decided to Replace Foreigners Will Boost a Rebound by Strengthening Starting Staff
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Kiwoom Heroes, a professional baseball team at the bottom of the league, threw a winning move before it was too late.먹튀검증
He broke up with Yasiel Puig, who showed below-expected batting performance in the early days of the season, and started strengthening the mound. He shows his strong will to leave the last place.
Kiwoom announced on the 19th that it requested KBO to disclose waivers for foreign batter Puig and signed a total of $400,000 ($250,000 per year, $150,000 option) for the rest of the season with right-hander Raul Alcantara as a substitute.
Kiwoom is at the bottom of the league with 14 wins and 35 losses in 49 games this season.
While the top three teams and the middle six teams are competing fiercely in the rankings, Kiwoom is at the bottom, far out of nine clubs, losing 7.5 games to the ninth-ranked Doosan Bears.
This season, Kiwoom drew attention with its unconventional choice of using three foreign players as one pitcher and two batters.
Kiwoom sent Ariel Furado (Samsung) and Enmanuel de Heysus (KT), who kept the team's mound solid last season, to other teams, and signed Kenny Rosenberg as foreign pitchers.
And with Puig, Ruben Cadines was recruited, expecting powerful firepower to overcome mound anxiety from two foreign hitters.
Until March, Kiwoom's strategy was not too wrong.
Cardinez led the division in March with a batting average of 0.379 in eight games and a whopping 16 RBIs, while Puig also met the club's expectations with a batting average of 0.324.
During this period, Kiwoom won 4 games and received a not bad report card of a 50% winning rate.
However, the two foreign hitters collapsed sharply in April. Puig and Cardinez had batting average of only around 10 percent from April to May.
At the same time, rookie Jung Hyun-woo, who started fourth, was out of his team due to an injury, and the mound collapsed, which was unstable in the first place. Kim Yoon-ha, the third starter, failed to secure even a single win and moved down to the second tier. Eventually, Kiwoom lost even the batting average of the 300s, falling into a seven-game losing streak.
Amid the overall crisis, Kiwoom manager Hong Won-ki cited the mound as the most urgent task among poor batting, defensive instability, and the collapse of the mound.
Ahead of the game against the LG Twins on the 15th, head coach Hong said, "There is a situation where we can score points only when the mound is strong. We have to cut off the flow in defense to attack again and have chances, so I have a lot of worries in that area. I think stabilizing the mound is the top priority regardless of starting or bullpen."
The replacement of players is expected to have a great impact on the team's atmosphere as well as the immediate strengthening of its power.
In the recent Kiwoom game, there was no hope of scoring a score and no expectation of winning. Even if they gave a hard score, they would quickly turn the tables or remain silent without making a single point.
Kiwoom acknowledged the failure of the two foreign hitters system and tried to change.
A Kiwoom official said, "The final replacement decision was made after giving up all three consecutive games in Jamsil against LG on the 15th. The foreign pitcher candidate group has been checking before that."
Alcantara, the newly recruited player, will have a meeting with his team after arriving in Korea on Saturday and begin administrative procedures on Sunday. He will likely be able to take the mound as early as early as June.
Alcantara from the Dominican Republic is an experienced player in the KBO league. He played in 101 games during four seasons from 2019, recording 46 wins and 24 losses and an earned run average (ERA) of 3.21.
In particular, he performed at the top of the league, recording 20 wins for the Doosan Bears in the 2020 season.
After that, he returned to Doosan for the 2023 and 2024 seasons in Korea after playing for the Hanshin Tigers in the Japanese professional baseball league, but last year, he struggled with 2 wins, 2 losses and an average earned run score of 4.76 in 12 games, and was eventually released during the season. Until recently, he continued his career with Leonys de Yucatan in the Mexican League.
Kiwoom said, "Alcantara's experience in the KBO league served as a strength. The fact that he continued to play in the Mexican league also became a positive evaluation factor (with immediate power input)."
In addition to Rosenberg, Alcantara and Ha Young-min, if Kim Yoon-ha and Jung Hyun-woo return, Kiwoom can certainly build a stronger starting lineup than before.