New KBO season opens with robot referee in action

The new season of South Korea’s professional baseball league is coming back this spring. Ten clubs of the KBO league will have exhibition matches in five stadiums across the country in Suwon, Sajik, Changwon, Daejeon, and Icheon at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The Doosan Bears, which can’t use its home stadium of Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul until Wednesday due to the interior work to be done, will start its exhibition match schedule at Bears Park in Icheon, the home of a KBO Futures League team.

The new rules and policies introduced this season will also apply to exhibition games. The automated balls and strike system (ABS), often called the ‘robot referee,’ will be introduced to exhibition matches. This is the first time that the ABS has been officially introduced to the major leagues of professional baseball in South Korea, the U.S., and Japan.

The KBO expects the accuracy of the ABS’s judgment to improve from the current one percent to over 96 percent through exhibition matches. In addition to introducing the automated system, the width and length of bases will increase by three inches from the current 15 to 18 inches, the same as those in the MLB. More thrilling plays are expected to be showcased thanks to more frequent base stealing. The rule of limiting defensive shifts will also be applied to exhibition games.

Hong-Gu Kang windup@donga.com