"A race between Younghyun and SV king? One step away." Why?Bears 19-Year-Old Rookie of the Year, life and death with splitter
"A race between Younghyun and SV king? One step away." Why?Bears 19-Year-Old Rookie of the Year, life and death with splitter
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Doosan Bears' 19-year-old Rookie of the Year pitcher Kim Taek-yeon will challenge for the first full-time closing season in 2025. Having said nothing about the save king competition, Kim Taek-yeon is making every effort to install a splitter that will create synergy with her fastball, which is her strength.
Since her debut season in 2024, Kim has grown into the league's top star. She took the finishing position in the middle of the 2024 season, setting a new record of 16 saves in 18 years as a high school graduate. In 60 games (65 innings) in the 2024 season, Kim pitched, recording 3 wins, 2 losses, 19 saves, 4 holds with an ERA of 2.08, 78 strikeouts, 31 walks, and WHIP 1.26, making it unbelievable that she is a rookie.안전놀이터
Naturally, it was up to Kim Taek-yeon to win the Rookie of the Year award in 2024. Two years after Chung Cheol-won in 2022, Kim Tae-yeon, who became the Bears' rookie of the year, recorded an annual salary of 140 million won for the 2025 season. This is the highest annual salary tie for a high school graduate in his second year (2021 season, KT Wiz Cho Hyung-joon). In addition, Kim also set a new record for the highest increase rate in the history of the Bears franchise with a 366.7 percent annual salary increase. The previous record was 300 percent (50 million won → 200 million won) of Kim Jae-hwan in 2017.
Of course, Kim will serve as the closing pitcher in 2025. Doosan manager Lee Seung-yeop was the only one in the bullpen that confirmed Kim's position as the closing pitcher ahead of the spring camp.
"Kim Taek-yeon's entry as the closing pitcher from the opening game does not change," Lee said. "However, I am worried about Kim's health and jinx in his second year. In fact, in the first season when you don't know anything, you just have to throw your own ball. Now you can see the names of batters and your mind may get a little complicated. If Kim Taek-yeon grows up and throws as much as last year, it will be a great help."
Receiving full trust from coach Lee, Kim continued to agonize over the 2025 season early on after the end of the 2024 season. Changes were needed to overcome the jinx of the second year. The conclusion of the concern was to install the splitter. Kim chose the splitter as the decisive factor to revive her fastball pitching, which is her biggest advantage.
"I'm going to go to the spring camp and throw a lot of splitters," Kim Taek-yeon said. "I'm going to take the Trackman equipment from the club, so I'm going to revise it little by little while looking at the data. If you can throw the splitter when you want and take it out from the zone and outside, the fastball and synergy effect will certainly be great."
What was the interim evaluation of Kim's ability to fit a splitter? When I met reporters at the Blacktown Spring Camp near Sydney, Australia recently, Kim said, "I am continuously practicing the splitter. There are still ups and downs, so when it falls well, it falls well, but sometimes it doesn't. Coaches always tell me that a fastball is good, so even a C-level pitch can have a B-level effect, and a B-level pitch can lead to an A-level effect. Rather than gaining confidence from those words and making the splitter A-level, I am continuing to practice thinking that even a small change can help my fastball survive."
Kim Taek-yeon said, "I have to trust my fastball, which is my strength, until I feel like I am not good enough as I did last year. To be honest, I don't think I can throw as fastball ratio as I did last year. We need a weapon that can withstand even on relatively bad days. Even if the proportion of fastballs decreases by increasing the completeness of other fastball types, it will be an important goal so that batters can feel the feeling more strongly."
He must overcome not only the splitter task but also the changes that occurred after playing in many innings last year. During her second year of spring camp, Kim was able to quickly reduce the time required for trial and error. She has achieved the balance of pitching that she wanted again after pitching in the fourth bullpen session.
Kim Taek-yeon said, "I feel like something came up from the fourth bullpen pitcher's pitch. There was a point I didn't like. As my external muscles weakened a little, I felt a little tight when I used my adductor muscles. Rather, I thought I had to relax my muscles more, but I felt weak. I realized that I could move my balance greatly with just that part."
The maximum speed for throwing a total of 50 pitches in the fourth bullpen session was 143 km/h. "It was 142.8 km/h, so I think it would be okay to round up the pitch," Kim said. "Laughing out loud. Last year, the speed was 144 km/h or higher. Coaches said they saw the ball during the season, so I'm going to throw the bullpen on the first day of the next turn, and I'm looking forward to that day."
Although it is only the second season, Kim Taek-yeon showed great responsibility as a closing pitcher. This is why he does not want to show an uneasy picture of the team's finishing position like he did in the early and mid-season of last year.
"I came to the camp thinking it was a finishing competition, and if the coach said that, you should throw the ball with a sense of responsibility that suits it," Kim Taek-yeon said. "We should not repeat the situation where we had difficulties behind the bullpen like we did in the early and mid last year. Last year, we had weak points in the regular season and the national team, but we want to overcome the first finishing situation of the opening game this year," he said with strength.
Kim declined to comment on her challenge to become the Save King, which requires her to compete with other prominent players. Park Young-hyun (KT Wiz), who already met Kim last year in the national team, declared his goal to become the Save King in 2025. Kim's view is that her second-year health is the top priority rather than competition with other team pitchers.
"It's amazing because I'm young and all the players I met in the national team including Byung-hyun Cho, Hae-young Jung, and Young-hyun Park are young," said Kim Taek-yeon. "Young-hyun said he would challenge for the save king, but I'm going to take a step back (laughs). First of all, I'm going to focus on what I have to do because I have concerns about my second year. If I don't get hurt first, and play full time, my results will follow like last year," Kim said. "The Doosan Bears' victory comes first. I want to focus on that."