Last year’s team OPS of professional baseball LG was 0.742, ranking second overall. The only team with better season team OPS than LG was KIA with 0.747.
However, LG could not record first place in OPS by batting order in any of the top batting order. For example, Hong Chang-gi had 388 at-bats and Park Hae-min had 286 at-bats, and the OPS of the first batting order was 0.708, which was 5th overall. In addition, the OPS of Park Hae-min in 336 at-bats and Moon Seong-joo in 168 at-bats was 0.760, exceeding the team average, but the record for 2nd batting order in 10 clubs was second only to Lotte (0.790).
LG’s OPS in the 3rd batting order was 0.809먹튀검증 (7th) and the OPS in the 4th batting order was 0.773 (8th), which was below the league average. Although they were clearly ahead, they were in 2nd place, not 1st place.
Nevertheless, the reason why LG was able to compete for first place in the overall team OPS was because of the competitiveness of the lower batting order. The only place where LG ranked first in the OPS by batting order of 10 clubs was also ‘7’. LG recorded 0.768 in OPS in the 7th batting order, leaving a figure comparable to that of the top batting order. Considering that the league average OPS of the 7th batting order was only 0.667, LG’s differentiated strength can be seen in the 7th spot, the starting line of the lower batting order. Last year, LG hired Moon Bo-kyung (94 at-bats), Mabel Garcia (91 at-bats), Lee Jae-won (78 at-bats), Yu Kang-nam (55 at-bats), and Moon Seong-joo (50 at-bats) in the 7th spot last year.
LG is the team with the least ups and downs in the overall batting order. Numbers 1-9 by batting order are the teams that come closest to the team average. With Lee Jeong-hoo, the best hitter in the current league, being placed at No. 3, the majority of teams like Kiwoom, who hit high hitting figures like mountain peaks and then go down, LG batting lines form a mountain shape with even ridges in terms of numbers.
This year, it seems that this phenomenon will be maintained or in some cases, it will become thicker.
LG shows signs of worrying about the composition of the top batting order after the opening of the demonstration game. LG coach Yeom Gyeong-yeop had intended to decide only the order of batting order with Austin Dean and Kim Hyun-soo in the third and fourth batting order, even in the spring camp, but he is showing a movement to make other choices, such as pulling Oh Ji-hwan to No. 4 in the demonstration game.
There doesn’t seem to be any difficulty in placing the lower batting order. Rather, it is clear that he is thinking happily. If you look at the weight of the players who are appearing as the 7th hitter in the demonstration game, the characteristics of the LG batting line are revealed.
Starting with the opening game against NC on the 13th, LG played 4 games with Park Dong-won as the 7th hitter, and since then, Moon Bo-kyung and Hong Chang-ki have alternated. In the game against Gocheok Kiwoom on the 25th, Song Chan-eui was also used as number 7, but most of them are players who are expected to perform well compared to the universal expectation for a number 7 hitter.
LG’s batting order leading to 8th and 9th is also expected to be relatively competitive. In the match against Kiwoom on the 25th, Lee Jae-won was used as number 8 and Chang-ki Hong as number 9.
LG’s power this season seems quite likely to come from the bat of the 7th hitter like the 3rd hitter and the 8th hitter like the 5th hitter. It could be a pretty daunting task for a battery facing LG.