Kim Do-young, The ‘Present and Future’ of the KBO League

New ‘baseball genius’ Kim Do-young, the ‘present and future’ of the KBO League

The Five Tool is the standard that Major League Baseball (MLB) scouts mainly use when selecting new players.

They carefully evaluate the player's grade by examining these five abilities: hitting, power hitting, base running, throwing, and fielding.

Unlike scouts and coaches who have to look at every detail of a player, fans can feel more intuitively the numbers of home runs and stolen bases.

A batter who has both strength and speed and is called a 'hot hitter' is basically evaluated as good at baseball.

The basic record for a hot hitter is '20 home runs - 20 stolen bases'. 사설 토토사이트

Hitting 20 home runs and stealing 20 bases in a season may seem easy at first glance, but it is not an easy number.

Since the launch of the KBO League in 1982, it has only been achieved 56 times.

Last year, no one achieved 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases, but this year, KIA Tigers' rising star Kim Do-young (20) became the 57th member of the '20-20 Club' on the 23rd.

He also attracted attention by hitting his 20th home run, breaking the record of 28 consecutive innings without an earned run by major league senior Ryu Hyun-jin (37, Hanwha Eagles).

Kim Do-young, who had high expectations as a top prospect from the time he joined, suffered a bitter taste from the high bar of a professional in the 2022 season, his first year of debut.

However, last year, he recorded a batting average of .300 despite the aftereffects of toe surgery, and his skills grew rapidly.

This year, the third year, he hit and ran like crazy during the month of April, becoming the first in the KBO League to achieve '10 home runs and 10 stolen bases' per month, and for the fifth time in history, he achieved the 20-20 club in the first half of the year.

Kim Do-young is the fifth player to achieve '20-20' before the end of the first half of the year, following Park Jae-hong in 1996 and 2000, Lee Byeong-gyu in 1999, and Eric Thames in 2015.

Currently, Kim Do-young has a batting average of 0.341 (9th), 105 hits (3rd), 21 home runs (tied for 2nd), 58 RBI (12th), 75 runs (1st), 23 stolen bases (tied for 7th), and an on-base percentage of 0.407

He ranks high in all batting categories awarded by the KBO, including 10th place and slugging percentage of 0.610 (2nd place).

Kim Do-young, who mainly played shortstop during his high school days, is making an MVP-level run after joining the pros, although it is unfortunate that he made many defensive mistakes due to poor handling of hard hit balls at third base.

Kim Do-young, who became the second youngest ever to achieve '20-20' at the age of 20 years, 8 months, and 21 days, is expected to become the youngest ever to achieve '30 home runs and 30 stolen bases' in the second half of the year if there are no major problems with his physical condition such as injuries.

Eric Thames (NC Dinos), who joined the '40-40 Club' for the first time in 2015, was the last to achieve '30 home runs and 30 stolen bases' only eight times in the 43-year history of the KBO League.

Although only domestic players are selected, there has been no '30-30' member for 24 years since Park Jae-hong (then Hyundai Unicorns) in 2000.

As Kim Do-young shows such performance, many fans who are interested in him compare him to Lee Jong-beom, who was called a 'baseball genius' in the past.

Lee Jong-beom and Kim Do-young are active for nearly 30 years, so a direct comparison is not possible, but they have many similarities, such as explosive speed and sharp hitting ability despite their slim physiques as Tigers players.

One encouraging fact for Kim Do-young is that he is three years younger than Lee Jong-beom was when he was selected as MVP during the 1994 season, when he had the best season of his career.

Kim Do-young, who is only 20 years old, has not only emerged as a star player representing the KIA Tigers this season, but also as the future of Korean baseball, which is expected to be even more anticipated next year and the year after.