Korea needs to rebuild after WBC disappointment

The Korean team leaves the field at Tokyo Dome after losing 13-4 to Japan in their second game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic in Tokyo, Japan on March 10. [NEWS1]

International baseball tournaments normally are few and far between, but this year, like the proverbial bus, two have come along at once.

Korea have just a few months to lick their wounds and reflect on a disappointing World Baseball Classic before a team needs to be thrown together again and shipped off to Hangzhou, China for the delayed 2022 Asian Games at the end of September.

Unlike previous years, the KBO will not break for the Asiad, which runs from Sept. 10 to 25 in Hangzhou, China. The baseball tournament will run from Sept. 12 to Sept. 24., with Korea looking to defend its gold medal from the 2018 Jakarta Palembang Games. KBO teams will have to continue without national team players during the tournament.

Korea left the 2023 WBC with two wins, two losses and no ticket to knockout stage on Monday. While a loss to Japan at the tournament was not a surprise, Korea had expected to go 3-and-1 and at least make it to the quarterfinals.

Instead, Korea’s WBC prospects started and ended on Pool B’s opening day — with an 8-7 loss to Australia that upset all the plans and cast a thick cloud of uncertainty over the rest of the tournament.

A 13-4 loss to Japan followed that — expected but no less painful — leaving Korea with two losses at the halfway point.

A 7-3 win over the Czech Republic and a WBC record-breaking 22-2 annihilation of China offered some consolation but the damage was already done — Japan finished with four wins and Australia with three, leaving Korea in third place with two wins and an early flight home.

The most obvious weakness at the heart of the Korean loss was on the mound, with relief pitching collapsing in all four games.

The loss against Australia was especially galling because it seemed completely preventable from an offensive standpoint, with poor pitching and one especially embarrassing base running decision costing Korea the victory.

Of particular note was the performance on the mound of Kim Kwang-hyun and Yang Hyeon-jong, two big veterans with major league experience that were expected to lead the Korean squad in Tokyo.

But neither player — both now in their mid-30s — acquitted themselves particularly well.

Kim appeared as a starter against Japan and started things off on phenomenal form, striking out five across the first two innings before collapsing in the third with a series of walks and hits that ultimately led to four runs for Japan and a complete shift in the momentum of the game.

Yang fared even worse. Despite being a veteran starter, he agreed to appear in Tokyo as a relief pitcher to bolster the Korean lineup in the middle innings. That happened exactly once, in the game against Australia, when he gave up a single, a double and a home run without a single out and was sidelined for the rest of the tournament.

With Kim and Yang both pushing 35, the focus should be on younger pitchers — ideally much younger pitchers. But stability was lacking throughout the roster, with the four youngest pitchers — Kim Yun-sik, Lee Eui-lee, So Hyeong-jun and Won Tae-in — all posting bad numbers.

Pitching was not the only concern. While the performance at the plate was not terrible, there is one overwhelming issue with the Korean WBC squad — this is not a team that is built to last.

Of the batting lineup that started against Australia, only three players were under 30.

Remove Tommy Edman and Kim Ha-seong, both 27, both MLB players and both therefore unable to compete in the Asian Games, and Lee Jung-hoo, 24, was the only player under 30 in the lineup. Kang Baek-ho, 23, who came on as a pinch hitter in that game but started against Japan, was the only other younger batter to make a regular appearance.

Of the regular starters, Park Kun-woo, 32, and Na Sung-bum, 33, were the youngest. Yang Eui-ji and Kim Hyun-soo are both 35 and Park Byung-ho and Choi Jeong are both 36, putting the average age of the Korean starting lineup that faced Australia at 31.7.

While bringing back the tried and tested players of tournaments past is not in itself a bad approach, at the WBC it clearly did not work. The KBO has already said it would take a different approach at the Asian Games, but it needs to be a radical new approach.

Korea’s squad of former heroes in the twilight of their career is not a team that can win tournaments. The KBO needs to break it down and start from scratch again, building a squad around rising stars like Lee Jung-hoo with a focus on younger pitchers that still have a chance to prove themselves.

It might not be pretty and it might be painful for a few years, but it’s the only way Korea can rise from the ashes of another WBC catastrophe.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]