"I was so angry."
NC Dinos' Lee Woo-sung was a player Lee Ho-jun had cherished since his days as a hitting coach. He felt it was a shame that the player never fully realized his talent and potential. When Lee Ho-jun moved from NC to KIA and then returned to NC last year, he reminded Lee Woo-sung of the training methods they had used together in the past. During the season he even warned, "If you touch the batting form, I won't leave it alone."
This year Lee Woo-sung put together a career-high season. In 2024 he met the required plate appearances for the first time while with KIA, and he reached the qualifying plate appearances again after two years. His numbers improved markedly. In 123 games he hit .294 (415 at-bats, 122 hits) with seven home runs, 53 RBIs and an OPS of .732. Both his batting average and hit total were career highs.
In fact, his numbers could have been better. In the first half he competed among the top batting averages. In the first half, over 78 games, he hit .332 (283 at-bats, 94 hits) with six homers, 35 RBIs, 32 runs and an OPS of .822. But his second half collapsed almost as if it were a lie. Over 45 games he hit .212 (132 at-bats, 28 hits) with one homer, 18 RBIs and an OPS of .541. In the first half he was as high as seventh in batting average. In the second half he fell in the opposite direction: among the 48 players who met the qualifying plate appearances in the second half, he ranked 47th.
He produced a career-high season at age 32. Yet Lee Woo-sung is now attending a fall camp in Okinawa, Japan. He is the most senior player at the camp. He is not there simply to manage his condition. He is training harder than anyone and sweating more than younger players.
Lee Ho-jun said, "Veteran players like Lee Woo-sung, almost like prodigies, hit more and work harder than the younger guys. We even have to tell them to cut back a bit. He came determined."
Lee Woo-sung said, "It's good just to come. You can learn and organize your approach, so I came to the fall camp to train in a good environment."
Even after a career-high season, the one who felt the most regret was Lee Woo-sung himself. He said, "I thought that if things went well, things that weren't so good would come too. But the second half was so bad that I was very disappointed." He added, "If I had gotten three more hits, I believe I would have hit .300 for the qualifying plate appearances. But I couldn't get those three hits, and it ended, so I'm really disappointed." Having barely reached the qualifying 446 plate appearances, Lee Woo-sung said that if he had had three more hits he would have finished at .301 (415 at-bats, 125 hits) and achieved a .300 season over the qualifying plate appearances.
But he said he could not hide his feelings of guilt toward Lee Ho-jun. "I'm grateful to the manager for giving me the opportunity this year. At the same time, I am sorry I performed so poorly in the second half. I struggled a lot and got very angry," he said.
The cause of the sharp second-half drop, he said, was ultimately fitness management. "There are technical aspects, but it was harder than I thought. I didn't pay enough attention to conditioning," he said. He listened to more than an hour of advice from Park Geon-woo, who has played full seasons countless times and has built up veteran experience.
At the end of September, Park Geon-woo visited the second team with an injury and Lee Woo-sung because of his slump. Lee Woo-sung said, "He's an older teammate I watched a lot during my Doosan days and he's very playful. But then he spoke to me like a younger brother. From the advice he gave then I thought, 'Ah, that's why I was bad in the second half.' Acting on that advice and putting it into practice brought me back at the end. I learned and thought about what might have happened if I had kept the right routine in the second half."
"I lost more than 5kg," he said, describing the current fall camp workload and the process he is using to overcome this year's disappointments. What is he working on at the camp now? He said, "This year I didn't change my batting form during the season for the first time. Even though the second half was bad, I really played the season without thinking about my form." He added, "Now, without changing the batting form, I'm imagining how to use my strength more powerfully and quickly and why I couldn't swing strongly, and I'm training so that the corrective processes become automatic."
On defense he said, "I asked Coach Kim Kang-min, who just arrived, how to get a good start and I've been asking questions about things I was curious about as a right-handed outfielder. I'm working so that defense, like hitting, becomes ingrained and automatic."
When next season ends, Lee Woo-sung will qualify for free agency for the first time in his career. He is a prospective free agent and yet came to the fall camp. But he only wants to wash away the disappointment of this year's second half and record better numbers than this year.
"I'm thankful just to be playing baseball and taking the field. I think about how to get better at baseball, and now I strongly want to become a core player and lead the team. That's why I seem to work harder," he said, adding with a laugh, "I'm still at a stage where I have to learn more. I'm also a player who thinks too much, so I don't really think about free agency yet. Of course, I'd like to be treated well."
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