Yoo Hee-kwan, a soft-tossing southpaw, went 18-5 with a 3.94 ERA and 126 strikeouts in 189 2/3 innings. (image: Doosan Bears)
SEOUL, Oct. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Doosan Bears’ left-hander Yoo Hee-kwan was voted the best South Korean pitcher of the season on Monday.
Yoo grabbed the second annual “Choi Dong-won Award,” named after the late former All-Star right-hander who was voted the MVP of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) in 1984. It was created last year to recognize the best South Korean-born hurler in the nation’s top league.
Yoo, a soft-tossing southpaw, went 18-5 with a 3.94 ERA and 126 strikeouts in 189 2/3 innings.
Yoo received 21 points from a panel of seven judges — a group that included former and current KBO managers — to beat out the 2014 winner, Yang Hyeon-jong of the Kia Tigers, who had 18 points.
A first-place vote was worth five points, a second-place vote went for three points and a third-place vote counted for one point.
Yang led the KBO with a 2.44 ERA, while going 15-6 with 157 strikeouts in 184 1/3 innings.
Yoon Sung-hwan of the Samsung Lions finished third in the voting with 17 points, after going 17-8 with a 3.76 ERA and 164 strikeouts in 194 innings.
The award committee said it will open discussions on whether to consider foreign-born candidates for the honors after naming next year’s winner.
(Yonhap)
