Shall we add strength to New Lotte?
When coach Kim Tae-hyung, who won the championship, took over the leadership of the Lotte Giants, he made significant changes to the coaching staff. Since a new leader has arrived, it is natural to change to new aides. It is also the most important part of building a new Lotte Baseball, including transplanting Coach Kim’s baseball philosophy to players.
A total of eight coaching staff members left the team, including acting manager Lee Jong-woon, batting coach Park Heung-sik (former head coach), base running coach Jeon Jun-ho, battery coach Choi Gyeong-cheol, and coaches Tae-soo Jang, Ho-jin Jeong, Dong-han Kim, and Ryan Long. Coordinator Heo Sam-young also took off his clothes. Most of them were people recruited by former general manager Seong Min-gyu.
Bae Young-soo, the second-team general coach whom former general manager Seong painstakingly recruited, remains. This is because he joined on a two-year contract. The reason we are paying attention to Coach Bae is because he had a conflict with Coach Larry Sutton during the season. On June 27th, Coach Bae suddenly moved from the main pitcher coach of the 1st team to the general coach of the 2nd team. Although it looked like a success, the coach who had given full authority to replace the pitcher was excluded from the first team in one move.
It was a time when the team’s initial upward trend was broken and a downward curve was drawn. The established theory is that a conflict with Manager Sutton arose during the process of reducing the number of first-team catchers from three to two. Perhaps it was loyalty to the team. As the conflict situation became known to the coaches and players, the team atmosphere became turbulent. From the outside, it was an incident that could be seen as a protest controversy.
An exclusive report was released about OSEN’s protest, which detected abnormal air currents. The situation became complicated as general manager Sung Min-gyu, who was in the U.S. at the time, returned to Korea and head coach Park Heung-sik also took action to resolve the issue. The situation was resolved with the strange explanation of ‘revamping the atmosphere’, with Coach Bae moving to the 2nd team, senior and hitting coach Park Heung-sik being solely responsible for batting, and 2nd team coach Lee Jong-woon moving to the 1st team’s head coach.
The scandal foreshadowed Lotte’s failure in the 2023 season. Coach Sutton’s leadership suffered a fatal blow. The performance, which had been on a downward trend, also failed to rebound. Coach Sutton left the baton midway due to poor performance. Even though they led the Stove League last year and invested 17 billion won, they ended the season in 7th place. General manager Sung Min-gyu was also eventually dismissed. Among the people involved in the feud, Coach Bae is the only one left.
Coincidentally, when new coach Kim Tae-hyung took office, he reunited with Coach Bae. We had a relationship where we won championships together as players during our Doosan days. After his retirement, he assisted as a coach. He met again at Lotte after a year and hit it off. Coach Kim promised at his inauguration ceremony that he would win the championship within his term (3 years). Coach Kim, who is unfamiliar with everything, may be glad to see Coach Bae, who has been a Lotte Man for a year.
We need Coach Bae먹튀검증, who knows his baseball philosophy well and is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of Lotte pitchers. He can also help him quickly understand the team, Lotte’s atmosphere, etc. Coach Bae also appears to be preparing for next season with the mindset of a fresh start. Attention is also paid to whether he will do his best to help Director Kim build a strong Lotte.
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