Nothing Lost in Translation: Meet Dan Kurtz, the KBO’s Top Ambassador, Part 2
Last week, Dan Kurtz, the proprietor of MyKBO.net agreed to an email interview and offered more insights into the league than could fit into a single post. In Part 1, we discussed Kurtz’s background and how he became a go-to for all things KBO. Here we discuss the competitive landscape of the league and what to expect in 2020, all the more relevant for a U.S. audience that will now be able to watch KBO action on ESPN.
This is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. For the purposes of clarity and familiarity, I have used the English naming order, placing Korean surnames last instead of first.
Jay Jaffe: What is it that has made the Doosan Bears so dominant in recent years, with five straight trips to the Korea Series and three championships in that span?
Dan Kurtz: Doosan has been the premier team of the late 2010s. I would credit that to not only the high level of play by some of their foreign players, such as Josh Lindblom, Dustin Nippert, and Jose Miguel Fernandez, but also to how few holes the team has had due to their depth at certain positions.
An example: Doosan lost the league’s best catcher to the NC Dinos prior to the 2019 season (Eui-ji Yang). How did the team respond? They plugged Se-hyuk Park in at catcher and proceeded to win another title. Their starting rotation during this time has also helped carry them to many wins, and while their foreign pitchers played a big role during their championships, their Korean counterparts also more than held their own. Read the rest of this entry »