Kiwoom Heroes shortstop Kim Hwi-jip (20) expressed his impressions of playing the first full-time season in the first team and expectations for the 2023 season.
In a recent phone call with Star News, Kim Hui-jip said, “I think I’ve prepared well for this winter. I think the most important thing right now is to continue what I set out to do during training at spring camp.”
Kim Hui-jip, who joined Kiwoom with the 9th overall in the 2nd round of the 2021 rookie draft, became the main shortstop last year and recorded a batting average of 0.222, 8 home runs and 36 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.662 in 112 games. In the first half, he showed batting average of 0.263 and OPS 0.716, above the league average. Overall it was disappointing. In the second half, the pace fell with a batting average of 0.185 and OPS 0.611, and defensive errors became more and more frequent. In the end, in the postseason, Shin Jun-woo (22), who has excellent defensive stability, was given the starting shortstop position.
In the second half of the regrettable 2022 season, Kim Hui-jip said, “I was shaken mentally rather than physically. Even when I started the first half or the second half, I just played baseball without thinking about the results, and the results were good. I looked back. He added, “Still, I think he has matured more mentally than in the first year. Thanks to him, he was able to play in the first team for a year and I feel like he made a good save.”
The mental management method he came up with was different. After a while, he pulled out a book and picked it up. Kim Hwi-jip was a pretty smart player until his second year of middle school, to the extent that his teachers recommended him to pursue a career in study. Since then, he has focused more on baseball and studying has become difficult, but the habit of not putting the book down once he falls in is still the same.
Kim Hwi-jip said, “I felt that if I didn’t break down on my own while playing a season, I wouldn’t be shaken mentally. So after the season ended, for about two weeks from the end of November, I deliberately took time to read books. Rather than exercising, I read before dinner. There are several times a year when you fall in love with a book,” he laughed. The book he read was a psychological book that changed the subconscious that was afraid of change and a kind of self-development book. I set my favorite phrase as my phone background and read it whenever I was exhausted from repeated off-season training. 안전놀이터
On the technical side, the focus was on agility. Kim Hui-jip said, “I started a little early in agility training while doing basic weight training. I was the fastest in high school, but I felt that my speed and agility had dulled compared to that time last season, so I set my off-season goal this way.”
Among offense and defense, he aimed to strengthen offense. He thinks it’s okay as long as he can consistently play in any position. Kim Hui-jip said, “It may be difficult right now, but I think I can improve in many ways if I exercise thinking that I can make 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases.” The more I became aware, the more negative my grades became. Last year, I realized too desperately that I shouldn’t be greedy, so rather than being conscious of my home run, I try to increase it naturally by paying more attention to weight training during exercise.”
Kim Hui-jip will soon participate in the Kiwoom 1st team spring camp held in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. In fact, it is his first overseas field training. During the Thai field training he experienced in high school, he underwent three days of physical training to adapt to the climate, and was injured on the last day, so he couldn’t even hold a bat in the actual training.
He said, “It’s winter, but I’m curious about exercising in warm weather, and I think it’ll be a really good time.” (Things built up) What position,