Kim Jung-min (53), a battery coach who leaves LG after 30 years and starts anew at Hanwha, is busy guiding catchers at the spring camp in Arizona, USA.
After joining LG in 1993, he played as a player until 2009, then changed to a coach from 2010 and stayed until last year. Coach Kim Jung-min, who spent a total of 30 years at LG, including 16 seasons as a player and 14 seasons as a coach, moved to Hanwha in November of last year and took on a new challenge.
Coach Kim always accompanies the players with a smile on his face and a benevolent voice, but his training guidance is not light. It is often seen that the four catchers, Choi Jae-hoon, Park Sang-eon, Heo Gwan-hoe, and Lee Seong-won, who are currently participating in the spring camp, are exhausted after completing defense training.
Coach Kim said, “The catcher is a really important position where one mistake leads to a run. So he has to train intensely and have a lot of volume. As I try to overcome the hard training, the coach tends to try to smile rather than frown,” he said. He smiled as much as possible and approached me with nice words a lot, so I think he laughs well because it has become part of his daily life.”
It was not an easy decision to leave LG after 30 years of service. Coach Kim said, “I learned a lot at LG and had various experiences. It wasn’t that I wasn’t satisfied with my life at LG, but after being in one place for a long time, I began to question whether what I was doing was right. I was wondering if what I had been doing would be applied well elsewhere and if there was anything more to learn, then an offer came from Hanwha. I decided that it would be a big turning point for me as well.” 온라인바카라
There are many things I feel while training with Hanwha catchers. Coach Kim said, “Like any other team, the gap between the main player and the backup is huge. There is no problem in playing the season with the main catcher Choi Jae-hoon, but the backup players must grow and narrow the gap to become a strong team. My goal was also to develop young catchers,” he said. “It is not a short-term goal. It is a position that also affects the team balance, so it takes a lot of time. So I want to help young catchers grow into good players by transplanting and coaching what I have.”
Hanwha coach Carlos Subero also paid attention to fostering by giving regular business trip opportunities to backup catchers for two years after taking office. Coach Kim said, “Coach Subero provides a good environment for catchers to grow. He is a manager who clearly manages the innings between the main player and the backup catcher,” he said. He explains that it motivates backup catchers to say, ‘I have a chance of 300 innings’.”
Following this, Coach Kim pledged, “I want to make good use of this positive aspect and put all my energy into developing good potential resources for our team.” It is up to Coach Kim to nurture a competitive catcher who can make Choi Jae-Hoon nervous beyond relieving his physical burden.