ethernetacademy.netWon-tae Choi, the LG Twins’ highly touted “winning pitcher,” has been dropped from the first team after posting an unimpressive 8.27 ERA in seven games since joining the team.
It’s unclear how much leeway LG will be able to give Choi, but at this point in his career, it doesn’t make sense for him to remain in the first team. With 5.5 games in hand on second-place KT Wiz heading into the final stretch of the regular season, it’s not out of the question that the team could give Choi a very long layoff.스포츠토토
On November 11, LG made the decision to remove Choi from the first team roster. In fact, Choi’s performance has been on a slow downward spiral since his move to LG. In his first game, on July 30 against Doosan in Jamsil, he pitched six innings of two-hit ball with five strikeouts and no runs.
However, in the very next game on August 5 against Samsung Electronics, he was roughed up for six runs in five innings, followed by a mediocre performance of two runs in five innings against Kiwoom on August 12. His last three games didn’t even last five innings. After a shocking game in which he gave up 12 hits in four innings against the NC on August 25, his slump continued this month with two runs in three innings against KT on the 5th and seven runs in 2⅔ innings against KIA on the 10th.
With this situation, LG manager Yim Kyung-yeop began to be concerned that Choi Won-tae’s innings pitched had surpassed last year’s total. Choi threw 135 innings this year. Last year, he threw 105⅔ innings in the regular season and 9⅓ innings in the postseason for a total of 115 innings. In August, he had already pitched more innings than he did from March through November last year. This is why manager Yoon Kyung-yeop has started to space out Choi’s appearances more and more.
However, this short break hasn’t brought any rebound in his performance. Now, Choi Won-tae will have to recharge his batteries after being dropped from the first team roster. It may not have been an easy decision to keep the trade acquisition out of the first team. However, LG decided to take a deep breath and prepare for the late fall.
LG had already made a similar decision earlier in the season. They decided that Lee Min-ho and Kim Yoon-sik were not in the best shape, so they pushed for a “summer camp” after the first team was canceled. In the meantime, Lee Jung-yong settled into the starting lineup and Choi Won-tae joined, allowing LG to survive two months without Lee Min-ho and Kim Yoon-sik.
The results are slowly coming. Kim Yun-sik threw five innings of one-run ball in his comeback against Hanwha on September 2. He followed that up with a near-quality start against KIA on Sept. 8 with 5⅔ innings of one-run ball. In his last three games in the Futures League, Lee Min-ho has pitched 17⅔ innings with two runs and one earned run, closing the distance between him and the first team mound. It’s a performance worth keeping an eye on as an alternate starter.
Choi Won-tae could follow the same path. Luckily, LG has time on its side. They are in first place with 70 wins, 2 ties and 47 losses with a winning percentage of 0.598 through 11 days. They have lost three in a row recently, failing to maintain their 6 percent winning percentage, but they have 5.5 games in hand on second-place KT and 6.0 games in hand on third-place NC. Furthermore, LG has 25 games left, KT has 23 games left, and NC has 27 games left, so there’s not much room for error.
It’s not about being generous, it’s about being realistic. It might be better to give the alternate starter a chance than to keep Choi Won-tae, who has an ERA in the 8s in seven games, in the rotation. Giving Won-Tae Choi more time is the better decision right now.