Even though there is the best FA model student, they can’t win. On the contrary, the performance was lower than last year. Hanwha’s brutal April, where even the 30% win rate is at stake, continues.
Hanwha, who lost consecutively against Sajik Lotte on the 26th and 27th, has a winning rate of just 30% with 6 wins, 14 losses and 1 draw in the season. There are three more games left against NC at home in Daejeon on the 28th and 30th, but it is not easy to get out of the 10th place in April. They are behind 9th place KT (7 wins, 11 losses, 2 draws) by two games. Every year in April, I had a hard season, being pushed back in the battle for overtaking the steamship, but this year, the same trend is repeating.
From 2010 to last year, 2015 (13 wins, 11 losses, .532) was the only season in which Hanwha recorded a win rate of more than 50% as of April for the last 13 years. Season 5 finished at the bottom one month after the opening. Season 3 of them ended in last place.
Even at the beginning of the season, it is shocking that the winning rate is lower than last year. Last year, Hanwha suffered 96 losses (46 wins, 2 draws), the most in a season in the team’s history, and the winning rate was only 302.40. It was the second lowest record after 1986 (31 wins, 76 losses, 1 draw, .290), the first year of the founding of the predecessor Binggrae.
Even based on the same 21 games, last year, they were tied for 8th place with 8 wins, 13 losses, and a win rate of 308.01. Even in 2021, when it started with a complete rebuild, the ranking was 10th, but it fought well with 8 wins and 13 losses in the first 21 games. Unlike the past two years, when we fought like heading on the ground without any reinforcement, this year, we invested in free agents. The current performance is even more disappointing because it is a season in which expectations have been raised to the full by recruiting hard hitter Chae Eun-seong as an external free agent after 7 years.
Chae Eun-seong is playing an active role worthy of the ransom with a batting average of 304 1 Lee (28 hits in 82 bats), 4 homers, 19 RBIs, and an OPS of .946 in 21 games. He ranks 2nd in home runs and RBIs and 4th in OPS, and is performing one of the best in the league. However, he is not linked to team performance. It contrasts with Lotte and Doosan, which were ranked 8th and 9th last year, who rose to 3rd and 4th due to the effect of recruiting free agents. ㅋㅋㅋ벳
The failure to farm foreign players is so painful. Birch Smith, who was expected to be an ace, was released due to shoulder pain after 2⅔ innings of 60 pitches in the opening game, and even the center hitter, Brian O’Grady, batted 102.7 in 17 games (89 hits in 63), no homers, 31 strikeouts, and an OPS of .335. After a sluggish performance, he went down to the 2nd team.
But even this cannot be an excuse. NC, which lost one foreign player due to injury in pitching, is struggling with a win rate close to 50%, while SSG and Doosan, which lost one foreign pitcher due to injury, are also doing well with more than 50%. Since Hanwha has a thin overall team depth, the sluggishness of foreigners is even more fatal.
The mound is holding up somewhat with the team’s 7th ERA (4.37), but the batting average (.222), home runs (8), and OPS (.607), all of which were last in the league, fell to a serious level. Out of 21 matches, 5 were scoreless. His scoring position batting average (.180) is less than .200. Except for Chae Eun-seong and Roh Si-hwan, there is no other player who is very threatening. Pitchers are increasingly burdened as they fail to score when they should. In defense, there are endless problems such as stupid misses and unrecorded mistakes.
It is difficult for coach Carlos Subero, who must produce results in the final year of his three-year contract, to avoid responsibility. It is true that the power is weak, but it is not comparable to the previous two years. I missed the games I had to catch at the beginning of the season, so I couldn’t get on the atmosphere, and the last two games went back to Hanwha, who were completely lethargic. As Chae Eun-sung went hitless in two consecutive games for the first time this season, the Hanwha batting line also went silent with one point for two days and no score for 17 consecutive innings. Chae Eun-seong is not a machine, so he cannot play well all the time. It hurts him to miss the victory he should have taken the best of when he was good.