To this day, Choi’s room has a photo of Choi and Jimin from their youth national team days. For Choi, Jimin is his protégé. Choi Jimin is like a player created by Choi Jae-ho.바카라사이트
After graduating from Gyeongpo Middle School in Gangneung, Choi had no presence at all until his senior year. He could barely throw a single inning. The same was true in his sophomore year. He was an unfinished business who looked up to Kim Jin-wook. Above all, he was very insecure with his pitches. The process of raising his arm was also intense.
However, in her third year of high school, Choi Ji-min turned a corner. Her delivery was perfect and her speed increased to 145km/h. As she improved her strength and modified her pitching form, she was able to get her own hits. “I have the know-how to catch my own pitches,” says Choi. “Firstly, a pitcher needs to build up some strength and create balance in his body. After that, I think we can talk about pitches, because if you’ve done all of that and you can’t throw, there’s a serious problem,” Choi said.
In fact, Cho Dae-hyun, who was not able to throw at all in his second year, improved dramatically under Choi Jae-ho. Choi Ji-min went through a similar process, emerging from the Golden Lion and National Championships in his third year to join the Kia with the fifth overall pick of the second round (15th overall). And in his first year, he didn’t stand out at all.
“Honestly, in the first year, you don’t have a lot of stamina, so even if you try to use it, you can’t use it much, because you haven’t built up that much strength. After the first few games of the season, it will be empty. And I don’t teach changeups in high school except for a curve or slider. I don’t teach changeups in high school except for the curve or slider, because I think the rest should be learned in the pros. What you need to learn in high school is fundamentals, not finesse. It’s natural to struggle in the first year.”
“However, Choi Ji-min has done well in her first year. She improved her strength and got in good shape. Last winter, I called her up and had her practice with the juniors at Gangneung High School for about a month. I told him to stop playing and come here to practice. He came here just before he went to Geelong Korea, so I told him to go and throw like hell and do what the coach told him to do,” Choi said, laughing.Choi added: “It’s going to be different for every club. “I’m personally not in favour of first-year players coming to the fore. I don’t think fans or clubs should expect too much from first-year players. They have only experienced high school baseball. They don’t have the durability to last long. It is important for them to taste the bitterness of the pros and build a body that can work in the pros. The direction of the first year determines the growth of the player. I think the real start is from the year after he has made his body in the professional training process, made a changeup that can work in the real world, and tasted the bitterness of the seniors. In that sense, Choi Ji-min is a great success story.”
Choi had the same advice for Choi Dae-hyun (third year at Gangneung High School). “I don’t know which team he’s going to go to, but I want him to just build his body in the first year. If he goes to Geelong Korea in the winter and gets one changeup in the pros, he has the qualities to be a great player.”Last year, Choi was disappointed. But in the process, he found the real thing, found the right arm height, and increased his velocity by more than five kilometres during the Kia Drive-In. In his final appearance against LG on 1 July, Choi used his strength to overcome Lee Jae-won’s bat. His fastball topped out at over 150 kilometres.
Kim Chan, head of the Kia Futures development team, said, “When rookies join the team, their bodies are weak. When they join us, we check the basics first, and once they are fit, we work on adding strength. You may have heard the term ATSC. AT is to get the athlete’s body in the best shape possible, and SC is to get the athlete to use their body to its full potential. After that, we work on what we call the ‘driveline,’ which is maximising the twists and turns of the body to maximise speed.”
It’s no coincidence that Lee Lee-ri and Choi Ji-min’s bounds have increased by more than five kilometres since their high school days as they went through Kia’s development programme.
Her arms are lower, but her twisting motion is much better than last year. It’s clear that Choi Ji-min’s success story could be a cautionary tale for the Kia Tigers in the future. The key to success in rookie development is to keep doing the same thing over and over again.