By Yoon Seo Park = This year’s KBO League continues to be dominated by teams from the Seoul metropolitan area. Only one team in the top five is from the provinces. Unless there is a rebound from the provincial teams, this year will be a feast for the metropolitan teams.
This season, metropolitan teams have been dominating the regional teams. Leaders LG Twins have established a dominant position, with SSG Landers in second place. The other three teams in the top five are the KT Wiz, NC Dinos, and Doosan Bears. Of the five teams that can qualify for the postseason, only NC is a local team.
At the bottom of the standings, the Hanwha Eagles and Samsung Lions are getting further and further away from “fall baseball. Hanwha has been on a downward spiral lately, and Samsung is quite a bit further from the middle of the pack.
The sixth-place KIA Tigers and seventh-place Lotte Giants have not lost hope. Despite the tough conditions, they are still on track to fulfill their postseason dreams.
For the past four years, the postseason has been heavily skewed toward the Seoul metropolitan area. For four consecutive seasons since 2019, four out of five teams from the Seoul metropolitan area have received invitations to play fall baseball. In the past four seasons, LG and Kiwoom Heroes have never failed to qualify for fall baseball, while Doosan and KT have made it to the postseason three times. SSG, which won the overall title last year, has done so twice.
Local teams, on the other hand, have struggled. NC was the only team to make it to the fall stage in 2019 (5th place) and 2020. Notably, the 2020 season was the first time a local team lifted the trophy since 2017 champion KIA.
In 2021, Samsung qualified for the postseason with a second-place finish, and last season, Kia finished fifth to catch the last train to fall baseball. Lotte has hovered around the bottom of the standings since finishing third in 2017, and Hanwha’s last postseason appearance was in 2018 (third).
In 2017, regional teams dominated the fall stage, with KIA (overall winner), Lotte (3rd), and NC (4th) qualifying for the postseason. The last time there were more local teams in the postseason was six years ago.
Kia, Lotte, Hanwha, and Samsung are the league’s most popular teams looking to turn things around. If we’re looking at the rise of the Korean Baseball Organization, the top teams should be evenly split between the capital and the provinces.
Excluding Kiwoom (42 games), who play at the Gocheokdome, there are 48 to 55 games left for each team. The mid-tier teams have a good shot at moving up the standings. It will be interesting to see if the regional teams can make a dramatic run this year.
Kia, Lotte, Hanwha, and Samsung are the league’s most popular teams looking to turn things around. If we’re looking at the rise of the Korean Baseball Organization, the top teams should be evenly split between the capital and the provinces.스포츠토토
Excluding Kiwoom (42 games), who play at the Gocheokdome, there are 48 to 55 games left for each team. The mid-tier teams have a good shot at moving up the standings. It will be interesting to see if the regional teams can make a dramatic run this year.