Hanwha has suffered a foreign-baseball atrocity this season.
After parting ways with Mike Tuckman, who batted .289 (166-for-575) with 12 homers, 43 RBIs and 88 runs scored last year, Hanwha made an ambitious signing of Brian O’Grady, an outfielder who has played in the United States and Japan. Upon signing him, the team described him as a “power-hitting, right-handed batting outfielder with the potential for 20+ home runs” and hoped he would make an impact.
However, he batted just 1-for-20 (10-for-80) with eight RBIs and three runs scored. He was the only foreign-born hitter among the 10 teams without a home run. O’Grady went through an adjustment period in the Futures League, but showed no signs of rebounding. He was eventually sent down.
His replacement, Nick Williams, didn’t fare much better. In 10 games, he batted just 1-for-63 (7-for-43) with one home run, three doubles, and three RBIs. He didn’t draw a single walk while striking out 13 times. He’s only hit one ball that was hit in the body.
Manager Won Ho Choi said of Williams’ hitting, “It’s not an in-and-out swing, it’s an out-and-in swing. There are a lot of false swings at outside pitches, and she is late to respond to fastballs.”
Hanwha added free agent Chae Eun-sung (2-for-9, 5 RBIs, 11 home runs, 47 RBIs) to pair with big-league prospect Noh Si-hwan (3-for-1, 5 RBIs, 19 home runs, 57 RBIs). The addition of a foreign hitter to the center field lineup could help the team score even more runs.
Major League Baseball player Kang Jung-ho said on his YouTube channel ‘Kang Jung-ho_King Kang’, “The atmosphere of the team has been changing little by little since Choi Won-ho took over. The team won eight straight games in the first half of the season, giving us hope for the second half.” He predicted Hanwha’s rebound.
He continued, “We need to improve our overall team batting average. We should have done a better job of recruiting foreign batters, but each one of them is struggling,” he said, pointing to the poor performance of foreign batters.스포츠토토
Kang Jeong-ho revealed that he approached Hanwha’s hitting coach Kim Nam-hyung, who played with Hyundai and Nexen, to help recruit foreign batters, but did not receive any feedback.
“I told Coach Kim Nam-hyung, ‘Before you pick a foreign hitter, send me a video and I’ll take a look at it,’ but he didn’t send it (the batting video) and just picked him. I’m really struggling right now (because of the foreign batsmen’s poor performance), and I think it would help the team’s batting a lot if the foreign batsmen could do a little bit,” he said.