Samsung Lions veteran catcher Kang Min-ho won the monthly MVP for the first time since his professional debut.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) announced on the 9th that “Samsung Kang Min-ho has been selected as the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League’s monthly MVP for July.” Kang Min-ho’s current voting method, which was newly introduced in 2018, is Samsung’s first catcher’s monthly MVP award. It is the first time in three years that Samsung has won the monthly MVP award since Baek Jeong-hyun in July-August 2021.
Kang Min-ho received 125,997 (24.5 percent) out of 514,874 votes in fan voting, ranking second behind Kim Do-young (242,659 votes), but earned a total score of 40.24 points with 14 out of 25 votes (56.0 percent), beating Kim Do-young (7 votes, 37.56 points in total). Kang Min-ho, who did not win a monthly MVP award since his professional debut in 2004, was honored with the honor of winning the monthly MVP award for the first time in 20 years after his debut.
Ahead of the 11th game of the season against KIA at Gwangju-KIA Champions Field, Kang Min-ho said, “There shouldn’t be an impact. It’s thin and long.” “My wife contacted me this morning (9th) to congratulate me on winning the monthly MVP award, so I said, ‘There is only the Korean Series left, I don’t think there will be any lingering effects if I go to the Korean Series.”
“I felt good and proud that we competed together because Kim Do-young is spending the season as if she is chewing up the league,” he said. “I don’t think I can beat Kim Do-young (in the fan vote). I didn’t have any secret to it, which was amazing, but nothing changed. I couldn’t play many games in May, so I was thinking of preparing well because I would have a chance someday.”
He also mentioned Choi Hyung-woo (KIA), another veteran player representing the league. Kang Min-ho said, “I talk a lot about hitting with (Choi) Hyung-woo, and when you are young, you can maintain it when you have a good batting feeling, but as you get older, your physical strength decreases, so it’s not easy.” Hyung-woo (Choi) said, “How did you hit for a month when you had a good batting feeling? I think something went well enough to say, ‘If I had known, would I have hit it like that?'” 메이저사이트
Kang failed to meet expectations by posting a batting average of 0.256 with two home runs and 12 RBIs in 32 games through April, but managed to rebound by posting 18 hits in 23 games and 56 hits in 23 games in May with a batting average of 0.321. He was sluggish by posting a batting average of 0.224 with two home runs and eight RBIs in 24 games in June, but turned his bat around nonstop in July. He had 11 home runs in July alone, ranking first in the home run category and posting a batting average of 0.408 (third), 26 RBIs (first), and a slugging percentage of 0.868 (first).
Why did he hit 11 home runs in the second half alone after hitting only four home runs in the first half? Kang Min-ho pointed out, “In the first half, there were not many fly balls. I was thinking about why I kept getting ground balls, but in the second half of the year, the ball started to float and the speed of the ball came out, so I think a lot of home runs came out.”
Thanks to individual players’ performances, the team is also gaining strength. Young pitchers have shown stellar performance this season. “Young pitchers have prepared well,” said Kang Min-ho, who is collaborating with the pitchers. “Lee Seung-hyun (left-hander) is doing well in the starting rotation for the first time, and I feel proud because he seems to be doing well without leaving the rotation,” he said. “Won Tae-in is doing so well. He was disappointed by himself after suffering ups and downs in the second half of the year. I told him (Won Tae-in) that ‘this is your skill, so don’t feel pressured and wish him to relax.'”
How did you feel watching Danny Reyes and Conor Seabold rebound after slumping in the early days of the season? “Conor said that he had a high value of change-up pitches in the U.S., so he mainly tried to use change-ups, but he must have known that Korean hitters are good at coping with breaking balls,” Kang said. “On the contrary, I like fastballs, so I found the point to pitch (against batters) with fastballs, and I think I’m throwing well.”
“Reyes is a good pitcher, so I asked him not to run away too much and to play against the batter, and he said he had to throw at least six innings, but he had a lot of pitches. I asked him to be aggressive, and I think he’s adapted well,” he said, adding, “Both players have improved their ball power.”
This year marks the 21st year of his professional career. As such, there were many happy and difficult moments. “After a season, some seasons go by as well as others that go by as well as others that don’t. As a person, I want to hide and run away or avoid things when things go wrong, but I didn’t avoid and ran away at difficult times. I was thinking, “The time will come when it’s good.” As I have been doing it steadily, there seems to be a twist,” Kang said.
Kang Min-ho’s goal, who has experienced three free agents since his debut as a professional, is his fourth FA. “The contract period (the third FA) is until next year, but I think we should do the fourth FA because we showed more competitiveness,” Kang Min-ho said. “It may seem like a desire, but on the contrary, when I was young, when I saw my seniors, they retired after turning 40 and retired under the name of rebuilding. If I take better care of my body for my juniors and proceed to the fourth FA, such a case can come out after me, so if I am competitive, I want to set a good precedent.”
“Players don’t really look at their career records. Sometimes I stay at home during off-season and take a look. I try to focus more on the present,” he said. “But one thing I want to achieve in my career is to play 2,500 games as a catcher.”