The Perks of Switch Pitching
Sunday, the day of the weekend league match, at Eonju Civic Baseball Stadium.
Today's game pitted Wirye Jeil High, the team that called this park their home, against Suwon High.
A man was setting up a camera in the equipment zone screened off by the netting behind home plate.
It was Jeon Nae-hyun, Assistant Manager and scout for the Kaesong Royals.
"Well, well, look who it is. Assistant Manager Jeon, you been keeping well? First time I've seen you since the Cheongnyong tournament, isn't it?"
Greeting him warmly was Section Chief Park Young-chul. Jeon Nae-hyun accepted the greeting with a businesslike smile.
"It's been a while, Section Chief Park. I heard you'd left the scouting team, so I didn't expect to run into you here."
"Ah, that? I did leave scouting, but I moved over to the PR department instead. So what brings you out today, Assistant Manager Jeon?"
"Same old work, isn't it? Word gets around that some high school team is hot lately, and us junior guys are the ones who get sent out to check."
He said it lightly, but that was absolutely not why he'd come.
He might call himself junior, but Jeon Nae-hyun was already a mid-career scout with a proven track record and seniority piling up behind him. A promotion was on the horizon, in fact.
And a man like that had come in person? An ordinary weekend league game was the kind of thing freelancers and contract scouts showed up for, not full-time professionals. This wasn't casual interest in a team or a game. It was something deeper.
"So who are you here to see, then?"
"It's less that I came to see anyone in particular—"
"Oh, come off it. Why are we beating around the bush like a couple of ballplayers? You're here to see Kim Yi-seon, aren't you?"
Everyone in the industry knew how things worked. What was the point of dancing around it? Section Chief Park cut straight to the point.
"Last time it was contract scouts from the Fighters and the Phoenix, and now the actual scouting departments are showing up in person. Fascinating, really?"
"Evaluating players is a free country, isn't it? His team gets decided by the draft anyway, so it's meaningless in the end."
"I'm from the old days, you see. Back then, tampering was par for the course, and we'd have a kid or two get their draft selection revoked and head off to college. Remember how it was?"
Section Chief Park's probing carried an odd edge of wariness.
"Aren't you ones to talk about tampering, over at the Twins? What you're doing goes well beyond early contact."
"Oh, come now. Ours is all about community roots, you know? Local boy development, that sort of thing."
While their light banter traded jabs back and forth, the game finished its preparations to begin.
"Welp, I'd better go set up my camera. Good luck out there, Assistant Manager Jeon."
"Section Chief Park."
"Yeah?"
"Kim Yi-seon. What kind of player is he, really, to have numbers like those? Is it what everyone says — just luck?"
Unable to contain his curiosity after all, Jeon Nae-hyun asked about Kim Yi-seon directly.
Section Chief Park grinned, as if to say that's exactly what I thought you'd ask.
"See for yourself. You don't even need much — one game is enough, and you'll feel it. Ah, so this is that kind of player."
And with nothing more than that, he spun around and headed back to his seat.
See for yourself, huh.
Suwon High was the polar opposite of their regional rivals at Poeun High — a school that prized field experience and gut instinct over data and analysis.
Which meant their scouting of Kim Yi-seon had skipped the detailed numbers and probability talk entirely, focusing instead on the intuitive and skill-based side of things.
"I'm telling you, I've got a feel for this. Resting his arm for a whole week without pitching? There's no question he's treating us as a showcase. This arrogant punk plans to use us to prove himself, and we're just going to sit back and take it?"
"No, sir!!!"
"That's the spirit I want. Now, what did I tell you all?"
"Watch the first pitch as long as we can, take in as many pitches as possible, and lock in the timing on the fastball!!!"
"Okay! Good! Let's go, Suwon High — fighting!!"
"FIGHTING!!!"
A school overflowing with fighting spirit. Coach Go Chang-yeon of Suwon High, who once built a respectable career as a pro, excelled at this style of coaching.
His conviction: skills could be analyzed, but in the end, executing them came down to the human being. So he heavily favored letting his players learn by taking their cuts head-on and finding the feel themselves.
Dropping heavily into his seat, Coach Go Chang-yeon slowly studied Kim Yi-seon as he climbed the mound.
"Hey, pitching coach. What's with those arms and legs of his, all stretched out like that? Shouldn't the kid be playing basketball or modeling instead of baseball?"
"You're telling me. I saw it somewhere — some scouting report, or maybe online — but measured off photos, his wingspan is supposed to be 2 meters 7 centimeters."
"Seriously? And he's what, 195 tall? Kid was born for it."
Long arms, long legs, silky-smooth motion, and yet a crisp separation between upper and lower body.
Go Chang-yeon had never been a pitcher himself, but he'd rarely seen a delivery this clean and this beautiful. The kid threw so effortlessly in warm-ups that he wondered if it'd even crack 130 — and the radar gun flashed 145.
"But you know, a form that simple and that pretty isn't only a good thing."
The key was deception. Deception wasn't just about hiding the ball well so hitters couldn't see it long. Even then, if the ball kept arriving on the same timing every single time, human beings adapted. That was just how it worked.
"Don't rush it, boys. By his second or third at-bat, once your eyes adjust, you might actually be able to hit him. And it's supposedly his first start, right? If we grind his stamina down, he might just collapse on his own."
The game settled into a tight pitchers' duel, and before anyone noticed, it was the top of the sixth.
That was when Jeon Nae-hyun finally understood what Section Chief Park had meant by see for yourself.
When he'd first heard Kim Yi-seon's profile, he'd pegged him as a fairly standard first-round talent. Excellent physical tools, decent velocity, but a pitcher lacking in breaking-ball ability.
His walks were few to the point of nonexistent, but considering how pitchers who lived on raw stuff and hammered the zone had always thrived at the high school level, his command still left questions.
But the Kim Yi-seon Jeon Nae-hyun was watching in person — not through a camera lens — was a completely different player.
"Well? Now you see it, right?"
Section Chief Park had made his way over to the seat beside him at some point. Annoying as it was, he had no choice but to agree.
"Of course you'd never know from freelance footage with botched focus and garbage angles. Kim Yi-seon is the kind of pitcher whose strengths only show when you watch him throw live from every angle."
"Usually when I hear that line about a pitcher, it turns out there's nothing special about him at all... but this time, I'll concede the point."
And what exactly was this strength of Kim Yi-seon's that had them both marveling?
"We actually measured it on our end once. His average extension while pitching comes out to roughly 2 meters 10 centimeters."
"You're comfortable just handing internal data like that to another team's scout?"
"Didn't we establish his team gets decided by the draft anyway? And even if I didn't tell you, video analysis would turn it up eventually. So what's the big deal?"
Kim Yi-seon's single greatest strength was the delivery itself. Who knew where he'd learned it — clean, stripped of all wasted motion, moving effortlessly.
And as he'd just said, Kim Yi-seon's average extension was 2.10 meters. Given that the current KBO average sat around 185 centimeters, that meant his extension ran roughly 25 centimeters longer than even pro pitchers'.
"Honestly, the extension is stunning, but what stuns me more is the balance. I just rewatched the first-inning footage, and there isn't a single difference from how he's pitching right now. Past sixty pitches, and his delivery is completely identical."
And he wasn't just talking about overlaying video from a cheap camera — this was shot on a decent high-speed camera, and not one element had changed. Even the placement of his foot strike was always exactly the same.
Superb balance, with his entire body under perfect control. Perhaps because of it, his command — or more precisely, his control — was far better than expected. He wasn't just painting the heart of the strike zone; he was building his own locations while still keeping his spot-up rate impressively consistent.
"At this floor, assuming his mentality holds up, he's already good enough to slot straight into a pro team's bullpen."
Jeon Nae-hyun delivered the assessment with genuine awe, but Section Chief Park shook his head as if he'd gotten it wrong.
"Nope. A bullpen arm? You really haven't figured him out yet, have you? What team in their right mind uses a starting-caliber pitcher in the bullpen?"
"A starter? Come on, isn't that way too high an evaluation for a two-pitch pitcher?"
To be fair, his game management so far had been outstanding. His four-seamer, his primary weapon, made up close to 80 percent of his pitch mix, but he wove changeups into the gaps with brilliant timing, navigating the game without ever landing in serious trouble.
His stamina was flawless too — past sixty pitches and not a trace of fatigue. That wasn't just good; it was grown-man territory.
Still. Two pitches.
"Even setting aside the lack of options, isn't he getting hit a little more as the game goes on? The stuff's the same, but it's different from the early innings — swinging strikes are down, harmless contact is up, and base hits are starting to trickle in."
"Oh, hush. Just watch."
Wow. Guess the rest week was wasted on me.
Not that resting meant I'd slacked off completely — I'd kept up my routines and trained hard. I'd played in last week's game too, as the designated hitter.
But whether it was my condition being off today or the hitters being lucky or sharp, I was getting tattooed with base hits left and right.
Granted, four hits through nearly seven innings wasn't exactly a disaster, but I was currently in the middle of updating my all-time worst hits-per-nine record here.
I'd love to chalk it up to simple luck, but this was their third time through the order, and it felt like they were finally seeing my ball — hitting it well, even. Two of those hits had come this very inning.
I retired this batter too, not with a strikeout but a lazy popup, and then steeled myself. Time for drastic measures.
"You're doing great, Yi-seon. Keep it up just like this!"
The pitching coach greeted me warmly as I came off the mound to end the inning. But I couldn't keep going like this. First career start, and a shutout was non-negotiable.
"Coach. Can we do that thing now?"
"... Really? You really want to?"
"Why not? Might as well keep the body balanced, right?"
The coach glanced over at Nam Kang-min, our catcher, as if to get his input too — but Nam Kang-min had already given up.
"You hear what he says he wants? Just let the boy do what he wants, y'know?"
Thanks for the backup.
The coach finally nodded, looking none too pleased about it.
Trust me. This is going to work.
Top of the seventh. The score stood 1–0, in Suwon High's disfavor — and Manager Go was rattled.
Not by the deficit itself. A single run was nothing in baseball; it could come back or flip at any moment.
The problem was the zero on Suwon High's side of the scoreboard.
"You still can't pick him up? If the high fastball doesn't scare you, then just sit on it and drive it! I keep telling you!"
His hitters simply couldn't find the timing. This was their third look, and all they'd managed was harmless contact — nothing turning into hits.
"The kid's got exactly four pitches — high fastball, middle fastball, middle changeup, low changeup. It's right there. Stop trying to hit everything and just hunt one. You hear me?"
The only inning they'd managed two or more hits was the last one. If this kept up, they were genuinely going to lose without ever touching that one run.
And hoping Kim Yi-seon would tire or come out of the game was a pipe dream — he'd thrown exactly seventy pitches. His velocity was virtually unchanged from the first inning. At this pace, he could go the distance with thirty-five more over the remaining three innings.
If they lost today, the Cheongnyong tournament was effectively goodbye. This was a game they absolutely could not lose.
"Coach! Let me go up there and get it done! I've seen eight or so fastballs over my last two at-bats — I'm getting the hang of it now!!"
A shout to lift the team's sagging spirits. Park Hyun-soo, the sophomore batting next, bellowed it out with everything he had.
"That's it, Hyun-soo! You upperclassmen, take a page from him and get some confidence! A second-year's got more fight than any of you. Yeah, Kim Yi-seon's stuff is no joke, but your eyes are adjusting too, aren't they?"
He wasn't wrong. I still couldn't explain why the ball looked so absurdly fast, but broadly speaking, the timing was coming around.
This was already the third at-bat; the eighth and ninth would be the fourth. Best two out of three — surely they'd take one. With that resolve, Suwon High roared another fighting cry.
And then—
"Striiiike!!! You're out!!!"
"Coach... that little punk switched arms on me out of nowhere..."
Park Hyun-soo stood there, voice trembling with the injustice of it all.
Wow. This kid plays baseball dirty as hell.
Top of the ninth. The opposing cleanup hitter, a right-handed batter, stepped to the plate. The fourth time I'd seen that face today.
Under normal circumstances I'd have worn my glove on the left hand and faced him right-handed. Not this time.
"WHOOOAA!!!!!"
The crowd cheered, even though I'd shown them the same thing last inning. Well, I suppose it never stopped being a novelty.
And the look on the batter's face as he watched me? Like he'd just bitten into something rotten.
This was precisely the countermeasure I'd prepared for hitters seeing me for the umpteenth time: the arm switch.
It had all started from a completely unrelated thought, way back.
"Doctor, think about it — there are more right-handed hitters in the world, right? So if I keep throwing righty more often, won't my left-right balance get lopsided? Kind of defeats the point of going switch, doesn't it?"
A casual remark tossed off during one of my checkups. If I overused one side, what was the point of choosing to be a switch pitcher at all?
The doctor, apparently without giving it much thought, answered off the cuff.
"You already throw opposite-handed against the weak hitters at the bottom of the order to keep the balance, don't you? Then do the same against the top of the order."
"Huh. Could do, I guess."
And that was that — an ordinary exchange, quickly forgotten.
But when I got home and turned it over in my head, it started looking like a genuinely good idea.
Come to think of it, wouldn't switching arms barely cost me anything?
There were several reasons hitters had the platoon advantage against same-handed pitchers, but the big one was that most breaking balls ran toward the glove side — that is, away from a same-handed hitter. And pitches that ran away like that became easier to hit when the handedness flipped.
Meanwhile, the only breaking ball I threw was the circle changeup, which happened to be more effective against opposite-handed hitters.
There was also the fact that same-handed matchups made deception easier for the pitcher. But deception wore off too, didn't it, once the hitter saw you enough times? I didn't have nearly enough pitching experience to pull off quick-pitch shenanigans, either.
Run the numbers however I liked, nothing but upsides. So I sprinted straight to the pitching coach to talk it over.
"So you're saying you'd face them same-handed the first couple of at-bats, then switch arms later on?"
"Yes, sir."
"You think that'll work? Sticking with what you've been doing looks better to me, honestly."
"Come on, let's try it at least once. There's nothing to lose. If it doesn't feel right, we just switch back."
"Well... when you put it that way..."
And so our little left-right shell game got the green light to make its debut in this game.
"Striiiike!!"
The result? More successful than I'd even imagined.
When they get comfortable, you just change things up. Who says changeups are the only way to throw a change?
The circle changeup I'd just thrown didn't break that sharply. But look at him — the moment the handedness flipped, that fading movement toward the outside corner flustered him into a wild swing and a miss.
And with no breather, straight into the next pitch.
"Striiiike!!"
Two strikes in the blink of an eye. This time I'd nicked the outside corner with the four-seamer.
But the batter couldn't even get the bat off his shoulder — he just stood there, staring blankly.
Same-handed pitchers feel faster on the inside; opposite-handed pitchers feel faster on the outside. It's simple geometry: thrown across your body, the ball travels the long diagonal; thrown in the direction of your throwing arm, it travels almost straight — a shorter distance. Same velocity, but the latter arrives sooner. Perfectly obvious, when you think about it.
Let a hitter learn that lesson with his body over the course of a single game, and his brain short-circuits from the sensory mismatch. I'd demonstrated it to my teammates during bullpen sessions, and every single one of them mistimed the pitch on the spot.
And the finish, as always—
"Striiiike!!! You're out!!!"
High heat, up in the zone — and the batter's bat swung a full foot beneath it.
Being a switch pitcher sure has its perks, huh.
"Good lord. I never even imagined a tactic like this existed."
Astonishing. Switch pitchers were all but nonexistent in pro ball, so the possibility had never crossed his mind.
At this point, wasn't facing Kim Yi-seon practically a tag-team match against two separate pitchers? The blunt, brute-force approach of watching as many pitches as possible until your eyes adjusted simply couldn't crack him.
Jeon Nae-hyun quietly revised his existing evaluations in his scouting report, then voiced his amazement to Section Chief Park.
Truthfully, I didn't know either.
Section Chief Park was surprised as well.
His point had only ever been that the ball itself was so good, the stamina so sound, and the two-pitch mix so cleanly balanced that a starting role was well within reach. He'd never imagined this was possible.
But how could a man admit ignorance in front of some junior colleague from across the industry, and wound his own pride besides?
"Exactly. A talent that keeps exceeding everything we imagine. I'm convinced that what we're seeing now is his absolute floor."
With that suitably grand statement, Section Chief Park pivoted the conversation.
"You know, at this point, the Royals' first pick in the next draft has to be locked in on Kim Yi-seon, right?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
Kim Yi-seon... going to the Royals? Our local boy? The one my PR team is running a whole campaign with?
"What's so shocking? It feels a bit odd saying this about my own team, but the Royals were on the pre-season last-place predictions again this year, weren't they? If you're going to finish last anyway, you might as well lock down a sure-thing prospect."
"Hold on, you'd spend your first overall pick on him? Aren't the Royals more desperate for position players right now?"
"What position isn't desperate on a last-place team? Any spot is a good spot if quality talent walks through the door."
Ah. I should've kept my mouth shut.
With the heart of an office worker watching his favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant get featured on a food show, Section Chief Park began to feel a creeping regret.
If the league got a taste of Kim Yi-seon this early, weren't half a dozen teams about to tank on purpose just to feast on him?