The news of Lee Jung-hoo’s transfer is inevitably welcome from the perspective of the other nine teams except Kiwoom. That’s because Lee Jung-hoo was none other than the most difficult batter in the league over the past seven years.
Lee Jung-hoo, who won the Rookie of the Year award with a batting average of 0.324 two home runs and 47 RBIs in 2017, his first year since his debut, lacked slugging power, but made it difficult for all teams with his sophisticated hitting sense and excellent pioneering.
Since then, last year, when he won the MVP award, he has 23 home runs, has long-range power, and developed into a complete hitter without weakness, before leaving for the U.S.
Lee Jung-hoo was a difficult hitter who treated all teams equally regardless of opponent. He recorded a KBO batting average of 0.340 and an OPS of 0.898, but his record against the nine teams also did not differ significantly from his personal record.
Among them, Samsung is the most welcome team for Lee Jung-hoo’s transfer. Lee Jung-hoo recorded a total of 0.379 eight home runs and 66 RBIs against Samsung, and was in a natural enemy relationship with an on-base percentage of 0.451 and an OPS of over 100,000 (1.005).
NC is the team that prevented Lee Jung-hoo with minimal damage. Lee Jung-hoo had the lowest number among the nine teams with a batting average of 0.323 – on-base ratio of 0.380 – OPS of 0.847 against NC. Of course, it only means that he blocked it relatively well, and NC often got in trouble when meeting Lee Jung-hoo. It was a representative case in which no correlation was established between left-handed pitchers and left-handed hitters.
Samsung is also a pitcher who failed to display his skills in front of Lee Jung-hoo, and Choi Chae-heung is none other than Samsung. Lee hit a batting average of 0.667 (14 hits in 21 at-bats), five doubles, a home run and a triple against Choi. His slugging percentage alone reached 1.143, and his OPS stood at 1.779.
On the other hand, the pitcher who effectively targeted Lee Jung-hoo was SSG’s “Aesthetics of Slowness.” Lee Jung-hoo faced Park Jong-hoon 35 times and only had a batting average of 0.242 (8 hits in 33 times at bat). Park Jong-hoon, however, showed a very weak batting average of 0.472 (17 hits in 36 times at bat) against Kim Ha-sung, who left for the Major League first.