Sports coaches can be broadly classified into three categories. It is a master chief, a master chief, and a master chief appealer. Of these three categories, the loudest is, by far, the master craftsman Hosoin. This is because Masters do not need to explain, and Masters often do not have the right to explain. On the other hand, it is common for master craftsmen to explain the symptoms of their ‘master general disease’ very diligently.메이저사이트

For that reason, if there is a director whose articles like ‘Introduction to ◯◯ Study by Director XXX’ are particularly frequent, it is safe to classify him as a master craftsman. If the same article continues to appear even after more than 10 years, the director can be said to be a master appealer by almost 100%. If the director won the top spot with that ‘◯◯ study’ even once, articles like that wouldn’t keep coming out.

Kim Jae-bak, former coach of the 2006 Asian Games national baseball team. Donga DB]
For example, Kim Jae-bak, former national team coach, was a leader who could be called a ‘Doctor of Sacrifice Bunt’. However, it is not easy to find an article saying that he ‘opened an introduction to sacrificial buntology’. Even though the sacrificial bunt is an operation that is bound to be followed by controversy, it was like that. In fact, I didn’t even have to open a separate class. It was the ‘real battle sacrifice bunt learning’ class that led the Hyundai Unicorns to the top of the Korean Series four times.

Gyeong-yeop Yeom, manager of the LG Twins. [Dong-A DB]
Conversely, LG Twins coach Yeom Gyeong-yeop has been steadily announcing the opening of the introduction to stealing class since 2013, when he first took the baton at Nexen (currently Kiwoom) Heroes. Coach Yeom said, “Not only do you succeed in stealing bases, but there are things you gain even if you fail,” while coaching Nexen, and in 2019, when he was the command tower of SK Wyverns (currently SSG Landers), “Either fast-footed players or slow-footed players are always ready to play. That is team play.” Of course, this theory has not changed in LG this year.

Therefore, there is a high probability that the introductory class on stealing will continue until the sooner of the day coach Yeom is not asked to ‘hold our team’s baton’ and the day when he lifts the Korean Series championship trophy. It is a situation where ‘I’ is as important as ‘team’ to coach Yeom, who has already failed to reach the top of the Korean Series with two teams. In baseball, a manager cannot make a ‘home run sign’, but he can make a ‘steal sign’ as many times as he wants. One of the surest signs that ‘I’ as a manager is doing something is the word stealing.

It’s not easy for a coach to be free from the experiences of his player days anyway. The former pitcher means understanding and solving the game from the pitcher’s point of view, and the batter former from the batter’s point of view. Coach Jaebak Kim has also been inseparable from Bunt since his days as a player. Then, it is not strange for manager Yeom, who has been evaluated as ‘a runner who ran to the manager’s seat’, to pay more attention to base play.

How many runs is stealing a play?
Coach Yeom said after the start of the season, “Usually, it is beneficial to have a stolen base success rate of 75%, but I think that if the success rate is 65%, the remaining 10% (points) can be effective in other additional areas.” The story that a 75% stolen base rate is the break-even point is now common sense to baseball fans. Where did this 75% number come from? To understand this, you need to know the concept of ‘Run Value’. (Myeonggija Hosoin starts his sabermetrics introductory class like this.)

Let’s analyze the pre-season games for two years from 2020 to 2022. In the innings that ended normally, that is, with all three outs, the average was 0.542. In a situation without a safe runner, you can expect an average of 0.542 points. In this situation, when the batter hits a home run, the average run average is 1.558 by the end of the inning. He was 0.520 when he failed to hit a home run.

So this one-run home run is worth 1.016 runs. In this way, if you calculate all 24 cases according to the out count and runner situation, the home run is worth 1.486 runs. A home run is the most run-worthy play of all events on a baseball field.

Calculated in the same way, a stolen base has a run value of 0.164 and a stolen base has a run value of -0.453. Therefore, you need to add 0.492 points by successfully stealing three times to make up for the ‘forgetting’ 0.453 points for each failed steal. It is profitable to succeed three times out of four, so 75% is the break-even point. (To be more precise, a 74.3% stolen base rate was breakeven for the three years 2020-2022.)

LG has stolen 25 bases while stealing 39 times through April 30 this season. While he gained 6.396 points for stealing, he lost 11.325 points for missing bases, resulting in a loss of 4.929 points. In sabermetrics, it’s estimated that for every 10 extra points you get, you get 1 extra win. If so, LG lost about 0.5 wins because of the stolen base. So, coach Yeom’s words, “There is no game lost because of stealing,” are not ‘yet’ wrong.

However, coach Yeom also said, “The difference in one game eventually determines the ranking later.” In fact, coach Yeom had the experience of missing the pennant race because of only one win in SK in 2019. Along with the Doosan Bears, they recorded 88 wins, 1 draw and 57 losses (0.615 win rate), but fell to 2nd place due to being pushed back to 7 wins and 9 losses in the opponent’s record. And he couldn’t overcome his chronic illness, which was weak for ‘fall baseball’, and fell on his knees in the playoffs. (Coach Yeom has a record of 10-17 in the postseason with a winning percentage of 0.370.)

If you succeed in stealing bases, will the atmosphere in the team rise?
Yes, that’s right. Director Yeom clearly emphasized that there is an additional effect of stealing bases. Director Yeom said, “The opposing pitchers are conscious of the runner and try to throw faster than usual. Pitchers who focus on runners have a higher chance of missing a pitch than pitchers who focus 100% on batters.” It probably means that stealing also helps boost your team’s batting performance.

There are many types of stealing, but stealing basically aims to get the runner on first base to second base. Of the 2,723 successful stolen bases over the past two seasons, 2,455 (90.2%) were plays where the runner on first stole second. Then, by examining what the batting results were like when the runner was only on first base, you could tell whether or not stealing a base increases a pitcher’s chance of a lost pitch.

It is true that batting performance goes up with a runner on first base. His batting average, which was an overall average of 0.264, is now 0.279, and his OPS (on-base percentage + slugging) goes up from 0.734 to 0.794. Why does this happen?

This is because the opposing team adjusts their defensive formations to favor double play. When the runner is on first base, not only the first baseman stays close to the base, but the second baseman and shortstop stand close to second base. It is common for third basemen to move to shortstop as well. This increases the chance that the ball will pass out of the infield. With two outs and a runner on first base, neither the batting average (0.267) nor the OPS (0.733) is affected because they do not stand like this. For reference, when throwing with a windup and with a set position, the pitching speed does not differ even by 1km per hour.

During this period, when I was a runner on first base, it was SSG’s best (36, 1.171) that a hitter standing at bat based on OPS had the best record. Hwang Jae-gyun (36) of KT Wiz was second with 1.103, and Cho Yong-ho (34) of the same team was third with 1.029. Not a slow player, but not a fast player either. In case you still misunderstand, a hitter with an OPS of 0.514 (Manager Yeom’s career record) is much more helpful for the team to win than a hitter with an OPS of 0.714 with the help of runners, even if the average performance is lower than that of a hitter with an OPS of 0.900.

Perhaps the pitcher will not be shaken after giving up a stolen base. The overall batting average during this period was 0.257 with runners only on second base. After the runner on first successfully steals second, it is 0.251. However, the on-base percentage will rise from 0.378 to 0.494. Why? You have to fill 1st base to induce a double hit.

On April 19, the ‘2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League’ NC Dinos and LG Twins match was held at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. At the end of the 8th inning with 2 out on 1st base, LG Hong Chang-gi tried to steal 2nd base, but was out. [Dong-A DB]
a man who lives by running
To the old woman, I’m not saying stealing a base is a useless play. There are definitely moments in baseball where stealing is absolutely necessary. In the 2004 American League Championship Game (ALCS), if Dave Roberts (51), the current Los Angeles (LA) Dodgers manager, had not succeeded in ‘the steal’ (steal), the Boston Red Sox would still be ‘curse of the Bambino’ (Boston Red Sox may not have broken the bad luck of not winning since 1920).

It is a completely different story to say that ‘our team will use stealing as the main weapon’. If base stealing was really such an effective weapon, Yeom and not a few leaders would still be busy issuing stealing signs. Even in the major leagues, which increased the size of the base and limited the number of checks, there is no team with more stolen base attempts than LG. So it’s not that others don’t know, so they don’t care about stolen base signs, but other people know better and take out stolen base cards only when needed depending on the situation.

Will ‘Director Yeom Gyeong-yeop’s introduction to the theory of stealing’ go through the cancellation process when this article I am writing on the last day of April passes away?

Self-closing will not be easy. That’s because director Yeom himself has to deny the reason for his existence. Director Yeom’s baseball might not be ‘running baseball’, but ‘baseball to run’. Only then can Director Yeom continue to boast of his presence, at least as a master craftsman Hosoin.