The best hitter in the KBO Futures League (2nd group) last year was undoubtedly Choi Won-joon (26‧KIA). Choi Won-joon, who enlisted in the Armed Forces Sports Corps (Sangmu) and is fulfilling his military service obligations, even though he was in the 2nd Army, achieved results close to ‘bombing’ and thrilled fans of his original club, KIA.

Choi Won-joon’s batting average reached a whopping 0.382 in his 92 Futures League games. He had 6 homers and 73 runs batted in, and his OPS, the sum of his on-base percentage (.509) and slugging percentage (.511), was a whopping 1.020. He picked up 124 hits and 95 walks on four walks, which is rare for a player with more than 200 on-base in a single season in the Futures League with relatively few games played.

Among the officials of the 2nd Army, there was even a story of “It’s scary” with a joke. One 2nd team coach said, “When you go to Sangmu, basically there is nothing to do except exercise, so there are many cases where the players change little by little in terms of physique and mentality. Choi Won-jun also felt that his body was strengthened. I wonder if he will come back with a lot of confidence if he plays an active role. Isn’t there a case where players who were discharged from Sangmu played well in the first team with such an effect on their backs?”

Choi Won-joon, who graduated from Seoul High School and was nominated in the 2nd 1st round (3rd overall) by KIA in 2016, received great expectations from his rookie season and was considered as the next-generation jockey of KIA field team. From his debut in 2016 to 2021, he has accumulated considerable experience with a total of 543 first-team matches. He also had a batting average of 0.326 in 123 games in 2020 and 0.295 in 143 games in 2021. It means that he entered the military service with some achievements.

In his younger days, he was unsure of his position as he doubled his infield and outfield positions. There was also a view that it was a way for a player who had not yet been firmly established to play as much as possible in the first team, but over time, the critical view that it was better to give his position firmly began to prevail. Such controversy itself paradoxically explained how much attention the talent Choi Won-joon was receiving.스포츠토토

In Sangmu, he played consistently as an outfielder. Without worrying about his bench row, he designed his future as a center fielder. Sangmu said, “The pressure on performance is not as great as that of the first team, so players often experiment with various things. He even gives and receives advice between players gathered from different teams. Officials in the second group analyze that Choi Won-joon is also in the stage of experimenting with various things, such as the swing mechanism. If he can find his own and get discharged, there is no more ideal scenario than that.

Choi Won-joon’s discharge can also be related to the new version of Yasujin in the future of KIA. In the case of the outfield, there is no fixed position in the future except for Na Seong-beom, who is located in the right field position. Socrates Brito is a foreign player who does not know when his contract will end, and I remember that several players took turns taking the left fielder position last year. The picture when Choi Won-joon came in could definitely be different from last year.