Won Tae-In Blanks kt wiz
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 Samsung Lions decimated the kt wiz by a score of 12–0. For the Lions, the offense led the way, but their starter, Won Tae-In pitched 6 scoreless innings, doing his part to hold the wiz offense in check.
Won Tae-In has been a very good pitcher for the Lions this season with an ERA of 2.30 that ranks as the 5th best mark in the KBO to date. For the 20-year-old RHP, it’s a massive improvement over the 4.82 ERA he posted in 112 IP in 2019. However, based on my observations from this outing and Won’s overall profile, I’m expecting his luck to change and revert more to his 2019 self.
My biggest concern with Won is that he allows a lot of hits, scattering 8 over his 6 innings against the wiz. He’s an extremely accurate pitcher, throwing nearly 70% of his pitches for a strike, which led to a lot of that contact; this issue isn’t isolated to this outing. Won is allowing 8.79 H/9 this season and 2.93 BB/9, resulting in his league average WHIP of 1.30. He’s been able to limit hard contact, allowing 0.63 HR/9 and 2 doubles out of 8 hits against the wiz. However, he’s allowing a lot of runners on base, increasing the chances of allowing runs, a bad thing.
Won has managed to maintain that ERA of 2.30 thanks to stranding 85.5% of runners allowed on base; a huge increase from his 67% LOB% in 2019. He displayed that escape ability multiple times against the wiz, working his way out of jams in the 1st and 2nd innings. That why I’m concerned because I don’t think it’s sustainable for Won to continue to strand so many runners; he just doesn’t pitch well enough to survive like that.
Won is not a strikeout pitcher, averaging just 6.07 K/9, despite a 4-pitch arsenal and above-average velocity. His fastball sat 89–90 mph and was easily his most reliable and used pitch. He backed it up with a changeup/slider combo, with the changeup around 77mph and the slider at about 80–81 mph. The slider displayed some good side-to-side movement, notably inducing two swinging strikes from Mel Rojas Jr on back-to-back backfoot sliders in the 1st inning. He also flashed a curveball a few times, throwing it around 70 mph and the upper 60s, but it never really had much of an impact. With his fastball displaying more 2-seam qualities, the curveball, and its drastic drop off in velocity doesn’t seem to be an effective match for Won’s repertoire.
He did a decent job of inducing Whiffs, getting 9 swings and misses for a 20% Whiff rate, but still allowed a ball in play rate of 78%, a by-product of his approach of throwing a lot of pitches in the strike zone. It worked against the wiz, but I wouldn’t put my money on continued success with this contact-based approach. Won’s peripherals, his K%, BB%, HR%, all indicate that he’s more of a league-average pitcher, one who probably posts an ERA of about 4.00; his FIP of 4.25 certainly seems to agree that some regression is coming for the 20-year-old. Of course, given his age, it’s possible the Won is continuing to blossom and will prosper this way, but I’m skeptical, at least for now.
