"No. 1 in inducing ground balls + recruiting a pitcher in inducing ground balls," but No. 2 in infield errors? Lotte has emerged as an urgent priority to strengthen its infield defense

"No. 1 in inducing ground balls + recruiting a pitcher in inducing ground balls," but No. 2 in infield errors? Lotte has emerged as an urgent priority to strengthen its infield defense

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The importance of infield defense grew as the Lotte Giants broke up with Aaron Wilkerson (35), a fly ball-guided foreign pitcher, and recruited a new ground ball-guided pitcher Tucker Davidson (28).메이저놀이터

Lotte officially announced on the 13th that it signed a total of $950,000 ($850,000 guaranteed, $100,000 incentive) with new foreign pitcher Tucker Davidson. Lotte, which also reported the news of the contract with "Ace" Charlie Barnes, naturally said goodbye to "Resignation Jesus" Aaron Wilkerson.
Wilkerson, who joined the Lotte Giants as a substitute for Dan Staley in July last year, quickly adapted to the KBO league. In 13 games in the second half, Wilkerson posted satisfactory results with seven wins, two losses and 2.26 ERA, and successfully renewed his contract with Lotte.

This season, Wilkerson kept his position by steadily playing the starting rotation despite the absence of Barnes' injury, Park Se-woong and Na Kyun-an's poor performance. He pitched in 32 games, recording 12 wins and 8 losses with a 3.84 ERA, achieving double-digit wins in his first full-time season and playing 196 ⅔ innings, the most in the league.
Despite his outstanding performance, Lotte chose to say goodbye to Wilkerson because of his age and pitch clock. Wilkerson will turn 36 next year. For Wilkerson, who enjoys head-to-head games with opponents, the deterioration of his ball power due to aging curves could have a devastating effect. In addition, with the official introduction of the pitch clock next year, Wilkerson's company that had difficulty adapting to the pitch clock in AAA, a minor league, before joining the KBO last year, could have raised concerns.

Wilkerson's breakup was affected by the removal of the fence during this off-season. Wilkerson was a typical flyball induction type pitcher. This season's ratio of fly balls was 55.3 percent, the fourth highest in the league, and the ratio of ground balls to fly balls was 0.8, the fourth lowest among pitchers who played in the regular innings. Lowering the height of the fence will negatively affect Wilkerson, who induces many fly balls.
Therefore, Lotte acquired Davidson, a ground ball induction type pitcher, as a substitute for Wilkerson. Davidson posted a ground ball/flying ball ratio of 1.25 in his Major League and Minor League appearances. He pitched 115 ⅔ innings in 32 minor appearances this year, recording a ratio of 1.27 pitches, which is why he specialized in inducing ground balls. Lotte's pitching staff, who recorded the highest ground ball ratio (47.3 percent) in the league despite Wilkerson's presence, is expected to make more ground balls next year thanks to Davidson's addition.
However, the question remains whether Lotte's infielders can handle ground balls with more players. This year, Lotte recorded the second largest number of infield errors (83), following the Kia Tigers (96). Shortstop Park Seung-wook tied for second with 23 errors, while Son Ho-young and Ko Seung-min added 13 errors and Na Seung-yeop 11 errors, respectively. They failed to give any boost to pitchers who induce the most ground balls in the league.

With the addition of groundball-guided pitcher Davison, strengthening the infield defense has emerged as Lotte's most important solution.