Five Questions With Jung-Ho Kang
Sometimes you don’t get a ton of time with a guy, and sometimes his translator expresses frustration at your first question, because sometimes he’s heard it way too often. So sometimes, you get to talk to a guy like Jung-ho Kang, and sometimes you get five questions answered, quickly.
Eno Sarris: I wanted to talk to you about your leg kick. I thought it might be a two-strike approach thing, but then I noticed you hit a home run without the kick recently. Is it a two-strike thing?
Jung-ho Kang (through interpreter): When I think I’m out of balance, struggling with that, then I use the two-strike approach, no leg kick. To help overall balance, depending on how I feel in that at-bat.
Sarris: You have the lowest opposite-field percentage in baseball. Have you always been a big pull hitter, or is that something that’s going to change a little bit as you see the league more?
Kang: I’m not thinking about pulling the ball. All I’m thinking about is putting the barrel on the ball, to center field. The location of the pitch dictates where the ball goes. I’m not intentionally pulling the ball, I’m just trying to go to center.
Sarris: So far, you’ve hit a decent amount of ground balls. Is there anything you’re working on with your swing plane, or are you just trying to hit line drives more than get it in the air?
Kang: Never thought it about it in those terms.
Sarris: I know that the fastball velocity is higher here, but in terms of types of pitches, what’s been different here? I know that in Japan, they throw more offspeed pitches, more junk. I don’t know what it’s like in KBO.
Kang: Similar types of pitches to Korea. Lots of sinkers and changeups, split-fingers, but the movement is different here. More movement. Everyone throws the same pitches in Korea.
Sarris: Last one. Who’s the nastiest pitcher you’ve seen so far this year?
Kang: Nastiest? They are all nasty. Nasty meaning?
Sarris: Nasty meaning like dirty stuff, hardest to hit.
Kang: Miami pitcher. The guy that hit me. The weird step, jump-step guy.
Sarris: Carter Capps!
Kang: Yeah he hit me. So far he’s the nastiest pitcher I’ve ever faced.
Sometimes, you don’t hit it out of the park. Sometimes, a ducksnort of an interview is good enough for a giggle on a Monday.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Thanks; enjoyed! I also like how you knew he was referring to Carter Capps.
So hard to pick from all of these jump-stepping Miami pitchers….
The guy who hit me *is* a pretty good way to define nastiest…
I would also say “the weird step, jump-step guy” is a pretty good way to define Carter Capps.
I love that his gut instinct reaction to that question was “They are all nasty.”
Is it strange he’s never thought about his swing plane? I feel like that answer either reveals a lot about hitting instruction in the KBO, or a lot about his instincts as a hitter. What I mean is that you don’t put up the numbers he has as a professional without dissecting your swing unless you’re a phenom. Does this mean he’ll get better the more he studies it, or that he’ll resist new analyses to go with what has always worked?
I’ve never played baseball, but I’ve played a lot of piano. You could certainly study the mechanics of playing piano and it could certainly help you, but you don’t absolutely need to do that to be a good pianist. Sometimes you just need to be told to relax and leave the rest to instinct. I would imagine that holds true for a lot of things as well.
This is very true.
I think the answer is that you can work on improving your swing without consciously thinking that is what you’re doing. He probably does tee and/or soft toss drills daily, which can help him work on parts of his swing even though he doesn’t think about it in those terms.
I think this is the mindset of more players than not.
At least he didn’t give Eno a wet willy.
I would love to read an interview of him from Korea. So much could be lost in translation, lost via interview (lack of) comfort, lost via just not wanting to talk about his approach or something else… but Kang seems to have an incredibly rudimentary approach to hitting. Most of these have been covered above, but:
1. changes pre-swing motions based on how he feels in that specific at-bat
2. aggressive pull hitter who doesn’t recognize himself as a pull hitter
3. high GB tendency and doesn’t think about swing plane or GB/FB ratio
Would love to see if he was more “open” about his approach pre-MLB…