The 24 players who will make up the Korean baseball team for the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games, led by head coach Ryu Jung-il, have been revealed.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) will hold a press conference to announce the final roster for the Hangzhou Asian Games at 2 p.m. on Sept. 9. Ryu Jung-il, the national team’s head coach, and Cho Gye-hyun, chairman of the Power Enhancement Committee, will be in attendance to brief the media on the roster.
There is no age limit for baseball at the Asian Games. However, the KBO imposed an age limit for the first time at the Games to help younger players develop their skills and ensure a smooth transition of the national team.
As a result, 21 of the 24 players must be 25 years old or younger or in their fourth year of professional baseball. The remaining three players 메이저사이트 are wild cards, meaning they are not limited by age or experience.
Naturally, there will be a lot of new faces joining the squad.
Hanwha Eagles’ Moon Dong-ju and KT Wiz’s Park Young-hyun, who are in their second professional season, are frequently mentioned as favorites to make the Asian Games roster. NC Dinos’ Kim Joo-won, in his third year as a professional, has also made a name for himself in the offense.
It will be interesting to see if any of the rookies will make it to the final roster.
Of the 198 preliminary rosters announced by the KBO in April, 17 were rookies. Yoon Young-chul of the KIA Tigers, Park Myung-geun of the LG Twins, and Kim Min-seok of the Lotte Giants have earned solid spots in the first team and are performing as well as their seniors. Kim Dong-heon of the Kiwoom Heroes was the only rookie catcher to be recognized early enough to be included in the reserve roster.
At the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, no rookies made the team.
One of the key battles will be in the backfield, where veteran catcher Yang Yang-ji (Doosan) will be missing.
Yang has worn the national team’s catcher’s mask at every international tournament since he first donned the colors at the 2015 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier12. Yang announced his retirement from the national team after the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC), and his name is not on the preliminary roster.
While the catcher position emphasizes experience more than other positions, it’s hard to find a standout among the 19 players on the preliminary roster, which means the competition for spots could be stiffer.
It will also be interesting to see if Lotte’s Park Se-woong and NC Dinos’ Koo Chang-mo, who signed multi-year contracts despite not being drafted, make the final roster.
Both Lotte and NC made bold investments ahead of this season by signing Park Se-woong and Koo Chang-mo to multi-year contracts despite their military obligations. They agreed to extend their contracts by the same amount if they enlisted in the military side by side.
If they win a gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games, they can resolve their military issues with a special exemption from military service. However, Koo’s physical condition will be key as he was sidelined earlier this month with a left hip flexor injury.