Manager Lee Bum-ho is better than players who have played in the first division for a few years in rave 19-year-old rookie shortstop

Oct 02, 2025

Manager Lee Bum-ho is better than players who have played in the first division for a few years in rave 19-year-old rookie shortstop
The match between the KIA Tigers and the LG Twins at Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on the 23rd. KIA Jung Hyun-chang is warming up. Gwangju = Reporter Park Jae-man pjm@sportschosun.com /2025.08.23/



"He has better abilities than his friends who have played in the first team for a few years."

KIA Tigers manager Lee Bum-ho praised high school graduate rookie infielder Chung Hyun-chang.

Chung Hyeon-chang is a 19-year-old rookie player who joined Kia through a 3-3 trade with the NC Dinos during the course of this season. He can be considered as a player who was selected in the seventh round of the rookie draft and actually gave up Hong Jong-pyo, but Kia praised Chung's potential, which has high potential for development in both ball and defense.




Right now, KIA is in a tough competition for Park Chan-ho, the main shortstop who will become an FA after this season. There are a lot of teams without shortstop, and there are already a lot of teams drooling about Park Chan-ho. If competition intensifies, there is no guarantee that the ransom will run and KIA will catch Park Chan-ho. If that happens, we need to find the next shortstop.

Manager Lee Bum-ho is better than players who have played in the first division for a few years in rave 19-year-old rookie shortstop
KT-KIA match held at Kia Champions Field in Gwangju on the 1st. Chung Hyeon-chang is hitting. Gwangju = Reporter Jeong Jae-geun cjg@sportschosun.com /2025.10.1/
Lee is keeping an eye on Chung Hyeon-chang. As soon as he visited the Asian Baseball Championship team of the U-23 national team, he started as the first shortstop against KT Wiz on the 1st. He only had one hit in the first inning, but he showed a very stable performance in defense. The movement was good, especially the throwing was very soft. He proved his performance by saying, "Strong shoulders are the strength.'

Coach Lee, who met ahead of the game against SSG Landers on the 2nd, said, `I think the bat speed will be much faster if the hitting gets a little stronger. The swing and feeling you have is fine. The defense was a young friend, but he was soft to catch and throw the ball.It's not easy to do that. I think it will be a good shortstop resource if we can get strength" he said.




Manager Lee Bum-ho is better than players who have played in the first division for a few years in rave 19-year-old rookie shortstop
In the game between KT and KIA at Gwangju KIA Champions Field on the 5th, KIA manager Lee Bum-ho is guiding Jeong Hyeon-chang, Park Min and Kim Kyu-sung's defensive training. Gwangju = Reporter's book@sportschosun.com/2025.09.05/
Coach Lee continued, `When you look at young players who are good, most of them are moving, but Jung Hyun-chang has better abilities than his friends who have been in the first team for a few years. Physical strength is important to become a main player. If we focus on building a professional body through weight training after this season, we expect it to be a good resource."

Jung Hyun-chang will play second base against SSG. The shortstop is Park Chan-ho. On this day, Choi Hyung-woo, Na Sung-bum, and Kim Ho-ryeong were also listed in the starting lineup. Manager Lee "Now there are two games left at home. I wanted to show my home fans the winning game, so I decided to play the main players. I'll play about five innings, and the backup players will support me in the back. In the case of Jung Hyun-chang, I saw him play shortstop, so I put him on second base because I wanted to see how he did it at second base. There will be many things to play with Park Chan-ho and listen to and learn from him.





This article was translated by Naver AI translator.