In a drive to improve the country's international competitiveness, the South Korean baseball league said Thursday it will return to hiring a full-time manager for the national team.
Following Major League Baseball's lead, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) also said it will adopt the pitch clock and the "ghost runner" system in extra innings to speed up games in the domestic league.
The KBO said it came away with these measures following its task force's discussions with professional and amateur coaches, journalists and scholars.
The league had formed the task force in the aftermath of South Korea's first-round exit from the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in March. South Korea had also crashed out of the opening stage of the two previous WBCs in 2013 and 2017.
To provide the national team with a consistent sense of direction and long-term planning, the KBO will once again hire a full-time skipper dedicated to international play.
The country had recently leaned on active KBO managers to pull double duty as the national team skipper, with KT Wiz bench boss Lee Kang-chul being the most recent example at the WBC.
The new full-time manager will also have a dedicated coaching staff not selected from the current KBO coaching pool.
The KBO will also try to schedule friendly games against international opponents on a regular basis, a la football style, rather than assembling the national team at the last minute before competitions.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres are set to play their 2024 season openers in Seoul next March, and the KBO will try to set up games against both of the big league clubs while they are in Korea.
The KBO said it will start a test run of the pitch clock in its feeder competition, the Futures League, in 2024, after installing the necessary system at all Futures League and KBO stadiums during the second half of this season. Once the test is finished, the pitch clock will be introduced in the KBO "at the earliest possible date," the league office said.
Starting this year, MLB set a 15-second timer on pitchers with the bases empty, and a 20-second timer with runners aboard. The pitch clock has been credited with shortening games by some 30 minutes to about 2 hours and 30 minutes.
So far this season, nine-inning KBO games have averaged 3 hours and 11 minutes.
Among other MLB rules that will also be adopted here, the KBO will start putting a runner on base in extra innings to speed up games. The so-called ghost runner system has been in use in the Futures League since 2022. MLB introduced that system in the pandemic-interrupted 2020 season to shorten games and reduce injury risk.
Starting this year, MLB increased the size of the bases from 15 square inches to 18 square inches, in order to encourage more steals and promote safety, as infielders would then be less likely to get stepped on by runners. MLB has seen a major jump in steals this season: Jon Berti of the Miami Marlins led the majors with 41 steals last year, but two players, Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Atlanta Braves (44) and Esteury Ruiz of the Oakland Athletics (43), have already surpassed that total.
The KBO, just as MLB has done starting this year, will put a ban on infield shift, first in the Futures League in 2024 and in the big league in 2025.
Under the change, teams must have four infielders starting with at least one foot in the infield dirt, which will eliminate an extra body in the outfield. Also, there must be two infielders on each side of the second base. This will prevent teams from overloading on one side -- typically crowding the right side with three infielders against pull-happy left-handed sluggers.
The KBO will introduce the "three-batter minimum rule" in 2025. In place in the majors since 2020, the rule requires pitchers to face a minimum of three batters in an appearance or pitch to the end of a half-inning, except for cases of injury or illness. If a pitcher faces one batter to end an inning, he may be replaced by another pitcher in the next inning. However, if the same pitcher is brought back for another inning, he must then face two more batters to reach a total of three.
This rule was instituted to reduce the number of pitching changes and speed up the game.
As for the automated ball-strike system (ABS), colloquially known as robot umpire, the KBO said it will decide exactly when to introduce it here after having further discussions with MLB and analyzing the ABS' long-term impact on the South Korean league.
Source: Yonhap News Agency