Yeom Gyeong-yeop, coach of the LG Twins, was convinced of one thing during the Arizona spring camp. He saw foreign hitter Austin Dean (30) batting in a practice game and judged, “I don’t think it will fail.” Coach Yeom said, “Foreign batters who fail in Korea have a lot of swings on breaking balls and throw-away balls.”
Austin is making a soft landing in the KBO league. 메이저사이트In his opening first four games, he had a batting average of 0.375 (6 hits in 16 at-bats). He has a good OPS of 0.944, which is a combined on-base percentage (0.444) and slugging percentage (0.500). His most noteworthy aspect is his swing-loss ratio (PS).
According to Sports2I, a baseball statistics company, Austin’s miss rate is only 3.1% (a league average of 10%) as of the 5th. This is tied for 69th out of 76 players who have filled the required number of at-bats. He is the lowest among foreign hitters in the 10 professional baseball teams. He has fewer missed swings than his teammate and league-leading alternate hitter Kim Hyun-soo (4.9%). Considering that foreign hitters usually have a big swing, this is a pretty meaningful number.
Austin’s exhibition batting average was 0.194 (7 hits in 36 at-bats). While playing his 12 games, he raised concerns with his tight offensive power. There was also a lot of attention wondering whether LG’s ‘cruelty of foreign batters’, which lasted for the past few years, is repeating itself. However, at the end of the demonstration game, coach Yeom Gyeong-yeop said, “I saw how well I was able to cope with the breaking ball while playing, but after seeing him contact and watch the breaking ball, I thought it would get better.
Coach Yeom mentioned Cliff Broomba, who was raging with a giant gun during the Hyundai Unicorns, and asked back, “When I first brought Broomba (watching the demonstration game), it was a fuss over the defensive type, but in the end, didn’t I win the Korean Series?”
Reviews of Austin are generally positive. A foreign scout from Team A commented, “(When looking for a foreign hitter in the offseason), I saw that the accuracy was good. The hitting point is usually in the back.” If the hitting point is behind, it may be disadvantageous to produce long hits, but it is possible to hit with high accuracy. A foreign scout from Team B said, “To do that, you need to have good bat speed, but Austin is good at that.” can be,” he said.
The reason why Austin’s performance is important is because of his ‘biased lineup’. LG has a high proportion of left-handed hitters. Most batters such as Hong Chang-ki, Moon Seong-joo, Kim Hyun-soo, and Park Hae-min sit at bat on the left side. Seo Geon-chang and Moon Bo-kyung are also left-handed hitters. As Lee Jae-won and Son Ho-young fell out due to injuries, the ‘reliance on left-handed hitters’ intensified. Director Yeom Gyeong-yeop said, “(Right-handed batter) If Austin does well, it will go much smoother.
Austin said, “I heard about the LG foreign hitter. I’m trying to end the curse as much as possible,” he said.