Will Park Dong-won (35) of the LG Twins, who failed to acquire the catcher's golden glove last year, threaten the "Yang-Gang structure" again next season.메이저놀이터

For a long period of 13 years from 2011 to 2023, the KBO League's catcher Golden Glove was shared by Kang Min-ho (Samsung Lions) and Yang Eui-ji (Doosan Bears). Kang Min-ho won 5 times (2011, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2021) and Yang Eui-ji won 8 times (2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023). Yang Eui-ji's 8th win is the record for the most Golden Glove wins in catcher's category ever.

However, Yang Eui-ji's name was not included in the list of candidates for the Golden Glove last year. In order to be nominated for the Golden Glove as a catcher and fielder, Yang has to play more than 720 innings (number of team matches X 5 innings) at the position, but Yang Eui-ji failed to qualify as a candidate this year as he only played 608 ⅓ due to major and minor injuries.

As Yang Eui-ji, the most winner and candidate of the Golden Glove in history, left the competition, Park Dong-won, who had been in the shadow of Yang Eui-ji and Kang Min-ho for a long time, also had a chance to win the Golden Glove Award. Park Dong-won has been a regular catcher since the days of the Nexen Heroes (current Kiwoom) in 2015, recording double-digit home runs every season except the 2018 season, but he couldn't reach the golden glove.

Park Dong-won, who had a batting average of 0.249 with 20 home runs, 75 RBIs and an OPS of 0.777 in his first season of moving to LG in the 2023 season, improved his performance with a batting average of 0.272 with 20 home runs and 80 RBIs last year with an OPS of 0.810. Compared with the record of Kang Min-ho (batting average of 0.303 with 19 home runs and 77 RBIs with an OPS of 0.861), who was the only Golden Glove competitor.

After the season, he joined the national team for the first time in his professional debut and played a batting average of 0.375 (6 hits in 16 at-bats) and one homer and three RBIs during four Premier 12 group qualifying games, and was selected as the catcher of the 2024 KBO Defense Award.

However, it was Kang Min-ho who laughed on the day of the award ceremony. Kang won the gold medal with 191 votes (66.3 percent of the vote) out of 288 votes. Park only garnered 89 votes (30.9 percent), which forced him to swallow his regret.

The competition for catcher's Golden Glove in the upcoming season is expected to heat up further due to the return of healthy Yang Eui-ji. Yang had a batting average of 0.314, 17 homers, 94 RBIs and an OPS of 0.858 in 119 games last year. Despite the absence of injury, he swept more RBIs than Kang Min-ho and Park Dong-won.

Still, Park Dong-won's challenge continues. While using Jamsil Stadium as his home ground, he has consistently hit more than 20 home runs and has improved his accuracy. He is already a veteran player, but he is still younger than Kang Min-ho and Yang Eui-ji, who are 40 years old this year. Attention is focusing on whether Park Dong-won will be able to break the 14-year-long "Yang-gang World" and open a new door in the history of KBO league catchers.