Hee-Kwan Yoo’s Deception Leads to Bears Success

The pitcher’s atypical arsenal lends itself to trickery and soft contact

While negotiations between the MLB Player’s Union and the owners of the big-league clubs drag on, the Korean Baseball Organization has begun its season, with a game per day broadcasted on ESPN, helping to fill our need for baseball.

Last night, the SK Wyverns and Doosan Bears faced off. The Bears won 4–2 thanks to a strong pitching performance by 33-year-old Hee-Kwan Yoo, in his 10th year in the KBO, all with the Bears. Yoo paired his below-average fastball with his looping 12–6 curve and knowledge of his opponent to work around trouble and into favorable outcomes. Here, I’ll be diving a little deeper into Yoo’s performance, starting with a post-game report that I put together while charting his outing.

Yoo pitched 7 innings of one-run ball, but what stood out to me was his pitch count: 110 pitches. In the 2019 MLB season, there were only 110 games where the pitcher threw 7+ IP and 110+ pitches, making this already a different experience from the typical MLB game.