“Because I couldn’t do it when it mattered…” The 34-year-old captain will also go to the final camp in Japan with great responsibility for Hanwha’s frustration in the semifinals
The professional baseball team Hanwha Eagles began training at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on the 3rd. Immediately after the end of the regular season, he came to the ballpark after taking only three days off, and is moving to a four-day training and one-day rest. Manager Kim Kyung-moon, who took office during the season to deal with the team in crisis but failed to make the fall baseball team in eighth place, said, “The team whose season ended early is lacking something, and there is something weak, so it ended early. We have to prepare more from now on because we couldn’t make it to the postseason.”
The veteran players who played the full season had to train for defense, base running, and team play in the morning, and then skipped batting training in the afternoon to focus on conditioning and recovery. However, he has been swinging his bat on the same training schedule as his juniors from the third turn. Chae Eun-seong (34), the captain, is no exception.
Chae Eun-seong said, “It is the first time for us to train so early (to finish) since we were young at LG. Even if we don’t say it, we know what we need to improve. Me too, and each player has a lot of regrets. As the coach said, it is time to make up for what we lack. Even though it may be tough, we need to set goals and prepare hard to achieve a good result next year. We are doing that now.”
Training in Daejeon will continue through the Miyazaki Finishing Camp in Japan next month. Seniors who have played full-time seasons tend to stay in Korea for training, while Hanwha captain Chae Eun-seong will also participate. “Almost all the players who used to play as main players go as well. I have had too much ups and downs this year. I will try to find and supplement problems to reduce them,” he said.
Chae had a decent season this season with a batting average of 271 (118 hits in 436 at-bats) and 20 homers with 83 RBIs and an OPS.814 in 124 games. However, his batting slump lasted for a long time as he left the team twice in the early days of the season due to finger and waist injuries. He had a batting average of 232 (55 hits in 237) and six homers with 38 RBIs in 64 games in the first half of the season.
In the second half of the year, however, he rebounded with a batting average of 317 (63 hits in 199 times at bat) and 14 homers, 45 RBIs and an OPS of 1.004 in 60 games to match his season average. “The final record shows that baseball is better than last year’s, but when you play well is important. It was not helpful to our team at an important time. There may be no one who decides not to play well, but I personally regret that the timing was not right,” Chae said.
During the month of April, Chae struggled with a batting average in the 100s (.188) due to finger injuries, and Hanwha also collapsed with a monthly record of 6 wins and 17 losses (win rate of .261). Both Chae and the Hanwha team showed strong upward trajectories in summer, but they couldn’t overcome what they forgot in April. As a result, Chae is also trying to find ways to reduce ups and downs and maintain consistency during the closing camp.
At a time when other teams are playing fall baseball in full capacity, no player would be happy to train at a stadium without an audience. “It’s been a long time since I haven’t been able to go to fall baseball for two consecutive years. It’s all the more regrettable because I know the thrill of fall baseball. I want to play with 롤 토토 players. Such a time will come,” said Chae, who played in fall baseball six times when he was an LG player.
Chae will continue to serve as Hanwha’s captain next year. Although it was a challenging year for her personally, she has never let go of her armband because she doesn’t want to burden others. I highly value Chae’s responsibility and leadership within the Hanwha team. At her retirement ceremony last month, Jung Woo-ram also asked Chae to serve as a barrier for younger players.
“It’s hard to become a captain, but I know what it’s like once I’ve tried it,” Chae said. “As Woo-ram said, the role of a veteran is to be a strong fence for younger players, so we have to lead them well,” he said. “We won eight more games than last year. I can see that the team is coming up little by little, but I think the fact that we didn’t make it to the fall baseball league was weak. We have to gather our energy to overcome difficult situations. It will be time to solidify that atmosphere from now on to the final camp.”