New LG baseball captain Park Hae-min “feels responsible...thorough off-season preparation”
New LG baseball captain Park Hae-min “feels responsible...thorough off-season preparation”
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Park Hae-min, 34, has been named the new captain of the LG Twins for the 2025 season.
“I feel more responsible because my teammates voted me captain,” Park said at LG's fan event ‘Love Giving Day’ at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Saturday, adding, ”I'll do my best to inherit the culture created by my brothers (Oh) Ji-hwan and (Kim) Hyun-soo, who were captains before me.”
He joined LG as a free agent after the 2021 season, when he captained the Samsung Lions, and will take on the leadership of the “Twin Legion” in his fourth year in an LG uniform.
Park, who will be a free agent again at the end of the 2025 season, was asked if he doesn't often captain in the season leading up to his free agency, and he replied, “It can be a burden or nerve-wracking to captain in the free agency season, but I've also captained in the free agency season at Samsung.” “I also didn't think it was a personal thing to say, ‘I'm not going to captain because I'm going to be a free agent,’” he said.
Park hit .289 in 2022, his first season with LG, and .285 in 2023, when the team won the Korean Series.
This year, however, his batting average dropped to .263, making it a difficult year for him to be personally satisfied.
“In terms of performance, 토토사이트 2019 and this year were the hardest seasons for me,” Park said, but he took a positive approach, saying, ”I learned something from the process.”
After hitting just .239 in 2019 at Samsung, he rebounded to .290 in 2020.
“I don't want to make excuses for this year's performance, I want to accept it as it is,” he said, ”and I just need to do well next year.”
Park Hae-min, who has played in all games for three consecutive seasons after joining LG, said, “I'm greedy (to play in all games) next year, but my grades have to come first.” “It's actually kind of shameful to play all games with the same grades as this year,” he chastised himself.
Park Hae-min said, “However, I can look forward to next year's season because I modified my batting stance in September at the end of this year's season, so I can look forward to next year's season,” adding, “If I prepare well in the off-season, I am confident that I will not have the same performance in the 2025 season.”
LG signed Jang Hyun-sik, a bullpen pitcher from the KIA Tigers, after the 2024 season ended.
“I'm glad to have a good pitcher as a teammate,” Park said, ”and I'll help him adapt to the team well because I've also transferred and come to LG.”
“I want to hit around a .300 batting average and increase my on-base percentage a little more,” Park said of his goals for the 2025 season. Park has had one season with a .300 batting average, in 2016.