196cm high school's biggest fish, why did he get scouting attention despite his poor ERA 5.40 performance
196cm high school's biggest fish, why did he get scouting attention despite his poor ERA 5.40 performance
Blog Article
Seo Moon-joon (18), the "high school's biggest fish," who is considered the No. 1 candidate in the first round of the 2026 KBO rookie draft, received the attention of scouts.
Seo Moon-joon took the mound as the seventh pitcher of the high school All-Star team in the third Hanwha Eagles high school and college All-Star Game held at Hanwha Life Ball Park in Daejeon on the 2nd and finished the game without losing a point in ⅔ innings.
Scouts from all 10 KBO teams gathered at the stadium to see promising players from all over the country. Scouts from at least eight teams, including five from the American League and three from the National League, were also crowded in the Major League.
The number of pitches thrown by Seo Moon-joon was few. He was seen catching strikes with a fastball and breaking ball of 151 km per hour. He couldn't strike out and went down without playing in less than an inning. It was not a big surprise, but the scouts generally expressed satisfaction.
The reason is that he has shown a gradual recovery from his slump that he has shown since last winter. Seo is a promising runner who had been running since his third grade in elementary school. He didn't start baseball until the end of the fifth grade of elementary school, but he started pitching in earnest when he was more than 20cm tall in middle school. Based on the Korea Baseball Softball Association (KBSA), he is 196cm tall, 105kg in weight, and has been highly flexible, which has been expected by domestic and foreign scouts since his first grade.
As a second-year ace last year, he had a 1.85 ERA with three wins and no losses in 13 games and 52 strikeouts with 22 pitches (four-ball 18 walks) in 38 ⅔ innings, and by the end of the year, he was in the mood that he would be a natural first. Along with Kim Sung-joon (18, Gwangju Jeil High School), who recently signed a contract with the Texas Rangers, Seo Moon-joon was the player who received the most attention from Major League scouts.
However, the balance was lost in the process of increasing muscle mass and modifying kick motions last winter. In addition, as schools in the Seoul metropolitan area were constrained in provincial training, they lacked training overall. As a result, Seo's performance in the third grade is not good, with 0-2 with an ERA of 5.40 in six games and 12 pitches (nine walks and three pitches) in nine ⅔ innings with nine strikeouts. In the second year, the ball that threw up to 151 km per hour also came out to 148 km.스포츠토토
It was natural that the scouts welcomed him because he threw a ball over 150 kilometers per hour lightly. While it is still called the top three among KBO scouts along with Park Joon-hyun (18, Bukil High School) and Yang Woo-jin (18, Gyeonggi Air High School), the Star News report revealed that the Major League club is still interested in Seo Moon-joon.
"I definitely felt that I improved compared to the beginning of the season," KBO scout A told Star News. "I had difficulty balancing my double-kicking moves last winter, but I think I'm looking for him little by little," Seo said. "As a pitcher, Seo has ideal physical strength. He also has flexibility and does not throw with great effort, so he can grow as a starting resource. Since he has good change-up and good curveball, the team he takes must be greedy to raise him."
When the player himself escaped from a long slump, a smile bloomed on his face. "I thought I really wanted to go out from then on because 3rd graders, including (Hwang) Jun-seo and (Yook) Sun-yeop, participated in the competition," said Seo Moon-joon, who met before the competition. "There have been many changes in the pitching form this year, and there have been some lack of condition. I tried this and that in the offseason, I wanted to build my physique and throw better, so I spent some time balancing my lower body, but it took me a while."
"Still, I reached the maximum speed of 153 kilometers per hour this year. I throw cutters, two-seam fastballs, changeups and sweeper, and I am most confident in my fastballs and changeups. With Darvish Yu (San Diego) as my role model, I like Ahn Woo-jin the most in Korea, and I want to display good performance and stability in the rest of the season," he said.