Doosan Bears right-hander Kim Taek-yeon (19) will definitely be the rookie player who showed the most outstanding performance in the first half of the 2024 season.
Kim Taek-yeon is a rookie pitcher who is wearing a Doosan uniform as the second choice in the first round of the 2024 KBO Rookie Draft. He is shy and polite to senior players, but his facial expression changes when he walks on the mound. Boasting a rotational speed of 2,500 rpm, his fastball goes well over 150 kilometers and hits the pitch with a force. His vertical movement is excellent, and the speed that batters feel is beyond that.안전놀이터
He had been a powerful fastball pitcher since high school, but no one knew he would throw this much in a professional league. Since the season’s opening, he has only pitched as an interim pitcher, but in the end, he won the hearts of Lee Seung-yeop and Kim Taek-yeon moved to the team’s closing pitcher position. “He has such a good pitching and a strong mind. I am not intimidated at all under any circumstances,” Lee said, acknowledging Kim’s pitching and mentality.
In order to become a closing pitcher, he has to meet many requirements. Among them, the most important factor is whether he can play fastball with overwhelming ball power to complete a game neatly. Representative player is Oh Seung-hwan, who dominated the Korea-U.S. professional baseball league from the mid-2000s to the mid-to-late 2010s with a heavy four-seam fastball called “fastball.” He was the “finisher” by instantly filling out three strikeouts with his overwhelming strikeout capability.
This season, Kim Taek-yeon is nicknamed the “second Oh Seung-hwan” by throwing fastballs that are comparable to Oh’s in his heyday. He has an ERA of 2.41 with two wins, six saves and four holds in 34 games. Although the pitcher himself is simple and has an overwhelmingly high portion of fastballs, it is not easy for a batter to hit even if he goes in for the ball. He is so strong with the ball that it is difficult to accurately timing the ball. Has there ever been a young player since Oh Seung-hwan who competes with fastballs in the middle of the game? He is the only pitcher recognized by players with more than 200 votes in the All-Star Game squad vote.
In particular, Ryu’s strikeout rate stands out the most. He struck out 38 times against 138 batters. His strikeout rate is a whopping 27.5 percent. This is the second highest strikeout rate among 19-year-old pitchers who played more than 30 percent of the required innings. This is higher than the 25.5 percent strikeout rate of Ryu, who dominated the league by winning the Rookie of the Year award and the Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2006.
Attention is focusing on whether Kim Taek-yeon, who has been on a roll in the first half of the year and ranked in the best 12 of the All-Star Game for the fifth time ever as a high school graduate rookie, will beat Lotte’s Yoon Sung-bin record of 27.7% strikeouts in 2018.