Korean baseball, which has reduced the level of difference with the world in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), has decided to open regular evaluation matches with other countries’ national teams to strengthen its competitiveness.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO),안전놀이터 which operates and supports the national team, which is composed of professional baseball players, plans to announce comprehensive measures to enhance the competitiveness of a national team based on these contents during the first half of the year.
According to an official from the KBO Secretariat, the KBO acknowledged the disastrous result of being eliminated in the first round of the WBC three times in a row, and decided to drastically improve the operation and support plans for the national team participating in the Premier 12 and WBC.
One of the improvements is the regular evaluation match of the national team.
It seems that the brand ‘Samurai Japan’ will refer to the Japanese model of running a national baseball team every year without international competitions and holding evaluation matches to continuously manage a pool of representative players.
The fact that the national team players returning from the WBC expressed their opinion that it would be better to hold an annual evaluation match like Japan in order to cultivate international competition experience also influenced the direction of the new national team.
The main purpose of regular evaluation matches is to improve the skills of the players, and the second is to attract fans’ interest in the national baseball team.
As the Asia Professional Baseball Championship (APBC), a stage for promising players from three Asian countries, will be held in November this year, there is a high possibility that regular evaluation matches will be held from next year after collecting opinions from 10 professional clubs and a wide range of opinions from the baseball world.
According to a source familiar with this content, as professional players participate, the KBO secretariat plans to finalize detailed plans for the evaluation game through systematic discussions with officials from each club, and the regular evaluation match is likely to be held in March or November.
It is known that the KBO secretariat is also considering inviting the opposing team to Korea for the evaluation match or directly going abroad to play.
It is also reported that professional clubs will continue to participate in the off-season Australian Professional Baseball League for the purpose of nurturing 1.5 military-level players and accumulating experience.