“I thought the LG Twins outfield was tight from before.”
This is what LG’s main outfielder Hong Chang-ki (30) said to reporters as he left the team’s spring camp for the 2023 season. It means that the competition is fierce, but it was not for nothing. In fact, when I looked at it, there were a lot of players at the starting level.
LG included 7 outfielders in this spring camp roster. Starting with veteran Kim Hyun-soo (35), Park Hae-min (33), Hong Chang-ki, Dean Austin (30), Shin Min-jae (27), Moon Seong-joo (26), and Lee Jae-won (24) are the protagonists.
Kim Hyun-soo is the team’s main hitter, and even in his mid-30s, he still shows off his presence with excellent attack power. Park Hae-min, who left the Samsung Lions before last season and became a free agent, is also spearheading the attack behind the lead-off. Here, although it slowed down for a while last year, a strong outfield was formed with various players such as Hong Chang-ki, a on-base machine aiming to restore honor, and a new foreign batter, Austin.
It doesn’t stop here. There is also Moon Seong-joo, whose batting ability has grown rapidly, and Lee Jae-won, a big boy in Jamsil who has both long hitting power. 안전놀이터
Moon Seong-joo’s outstanding batting ability last year improved his skill to the extent that he was called the king of over-the-counter batting until the middle of last year. Jae-Won Lee showed off his explosive power by scoring 7 out of 26 hits with home runs in the spacious Jamsil Stadium, although his accuracy declined as time went on. Also, there is Shin Min-jae, who did not have many opportunities in the first team, but recorded a batting average (0.302) in the 30% range in the Futures League. As Hong Chang-ki said, it is not an easy outfield team. It is the best outfield in the league with many players who can be used as starting players in other teams.
However, no matter how good the outfielders are, they cannot all be included in the starting lineup because their seats are fixed. In order to utilize good players at the same time, new LG coach Yeom Gyeong-yeop started to organize traffic in the outfield. As the main outfielders currently conceived, Hyun-soo Kim and Chang-ki Hong alternately play left fielder and designated hitter, Hae-min Park plays center fielder, and Austin plays right fielder.
Lee Jae-won, who was not included in the main outfield, started to change his position to first baseman to utilize his offensive talent. Moon Seong-ju plans to increase his utilization as an all-weather backup in the outfield.
LG has a number of key outfielders and has built a solid outfield lineup. I wonder what kind of vitality the league’s strongest outfield team will bring to LG, which is aiming for the presidency.