Park Min-woo, who regained the wilderness, will revive as a “daedo second baseman.” “Feel the fun of stealing again.”
Park Min-woo (30, NC Dinos), who once stepped on 50 steals, declared a “revival of the great island.” In particular, it can be said that it is unusual to express this determination even after signing a large FA contract.
Park Min-woo said in an interview with Star News at Changwon NC Park on the 11th, “I want to play again through the 2021 and 2022 seasons because I feel the fun and taste of the former steal.”
In fact, the past two seasons were not a good memory for Park Min-woo. Starting with the SNS controversy, injuries and several incidents occurred one after another. He also confessed, “I want to live quietly now.”
His performance also stood at 0.261 in 2021 and 0.267 in 2022. He achieved a batting average of .300 (2015-2020) for six consecutive years, and in 2017, he ranked third with a whopping 0.363. Until now, the figure has not reached the value of Park Min-woo’s name.
However, he also showed hope, so it was a steal. In 2021, Park Min-woo, who played in only 50 games and 215 at-bats due to injury and disciplinary action against COVID-19, recorded 12 steals. This was not much different from the number of stolen bases (13) achieved in 530 at-bats in the previous year.
In 2022, he also recorded 21 steals in 104 games, ranking eighth. It was the first time in six years that Park Min-woo ranked in the top 10 in the stolen base category since 2016 (20 steals, 10th).
“In 2021, the pace was good until the season was out. Park Min-woo, who said, “If I had played full-time, I would have played 20 games unconditionally,” said, “I missed 40 games last year, and I thought I could play more than 30 games unconditionally if I decided.”
Park Min-woo was a player close to ‘Daedo’ even in his early professional days. In 2014, his first full-time year, he stole the base 50 times and achieved 46 steals the following year. Although they finished second in both seasons behind Kim Sang-soo (33) and Park Hae-min (33), they consistently showed off their league-class base running.
However, after 20 steals in 2016, Park Min-woo has not recorded more than 20 steals in a while. Even if he didn’t steal, he scored because there were many sluggers such as Na Sung-bum (34, current KIA), Park Seok-min (38), and Yang Eui-ji (36, current Doosan). On top of that, the number of games played decreased due to minor injuries.
Still, Park Min-woo confessed that he always had a desire to steal. He said, “I was greedy as a runner, but there were situations where I couldn’t play even if I wanted to, and there were many restrictions because I had injuries.” “Now I’ve felt the fun of the old steal again,” he said. “I originally aimed at 10 steals, but now I want to try 20 steals and even 30 if possible.”
Park Min-woo’s resolution also contributed to the change in team color. In the past two years, players who can hit more than 20 home runs, including Na Sung-bum, Yang Eui-ji, and Aaron Alther (34), have left, and instead, school hitters such as Park Kun-woo (33) and Son Ah-seop (35) joined. Due to the decrease in the number of home runs, they are aiming to advance and score through foot baseball. Park Min-woo also said, “I think the role of playing has become important because the number of long hitters has decreased a lot this year.”
The recent trend of baseball is to reduce attempts to steal bases due to injury risks and efficiency problems. The total number of stolen bases in the league decreased from 1,024 in 576 games in 2014 to 890 in 720 games last year. On top of that, he signed an eight-year contract (5+3 years) and up to 14 billion won ahead of this season, and he is a player who needs to buy himself. 사설토토
However, Park Min-woo rather chose to save the “wildness” on base for the team. He expressed his hope, saying, “I hope this year will be a year to test me by stealing 20-30 bases each.”