As expected, Lotte is drawing keen attention ahead of the 2024 season. Lotte, which has been absent from the postseason for a long time, has made ceaseless efforts for change, but has repeatedly failed. It underwent surgery again last fall. It has changed both the head of the team and the head of the front office.
Many assessed that the appointment of Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung, who led the Doosan Dynasty, symbolizes Lotte’s struggle for change. According to Lotte’s recent appointment as a coach, the team was not free from the keywords “born in Busan” or “born in Lotte.” Or, it was a foreign coach. Ultimately, however, both failed to achieve their desperate goal of winning the title. Kim said, “Busan and Lotte do not have much relationship. Instead, they are armed with performance. They are contractors to win the title.
Expectations are high that Kim’s unique charisma will strain Lotte’s organization, and that competition from the perspective of outsiders will awaken good talent latent in Lotte’s squad. Moreover, Kim boasts one of the most splendid careers among active coaches. He has led the team to advance to the Korean Series for seven consecutive years, the first time in the history of professional baseball, and won the title three times among them. Both his ability to manage the regular season and the post season have been verified.
While Kim has successfully formed a reliable coaching staff around Kim, the front office is also keeping pace with the appointment of Park Joon-hyuk, who is well versed in Lotte’s livelihood. Although Park is a relatively reformist figure, he is well aware of the physiology of the baseball team and has penetrated the organizational culture through various positions in the team. The relationship between Park and Kim also starts off amicably.
In the end, however, baseball is played by a player, and the appointment of a manager or replacement of the head of a team does not guarantee a team’s performance. This means that players have to do their share. Lotte was not very interested in the external free agent (FA) market. Although it has recruited some players in the 2nd draft and release markets, expectations are not enormous. The lineup of foreigners has not changed significantly, either. Conservatives say that they expect a good performance this year.
In the internal FA market, Jeon Joon-woo, the team’s leader, was caught, but An Chi-hong (Hanwha), another leader, chose to move. An Chi-hong’s vacancy should also be filled. With young players yet to hit 100% of the time, it is concluded that mid-leg players need to play well. Naturally, expectations are high for the three FA players who were widely recruited ahead of the 2023 season 랭크카지노.
Catcher Yoo Kang-nam (31), who signed a four-year, 8 billion won (8 million U.S. dollars) contract, recorded a batting average of 0.261 and an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of 0.726 in 121 games. It is comforting that the flow of players has improved towards the end of the second half, but considering the amount and expectations at the time of recruitment, more efforts should be made. Given that he has adapted to the team for one year, he is expected to be able to start the season with a more relaxed mindset, which is highly anticipated. Some say that it is too early for Lotte to evaluate as it was brought in to put an end to the chaotic period of catchers.
Having signed a contract worth 5 billion won (approx. He seemed to live up to his expectations by playing well in the early stages of the season. He was selected as the right person to deal with shortstop issues. However, he ended the season in vain with a batting average of 0.257 with four homers and an OPS of 0.724 in 113 games due to frequent injury. Analysts say the most important thing is to maintain good health as performance when healthy has been proven to some extent.
After the last train ride in Lotte’s FA recruitment match, Han failed to take up position in both the starting pitcher and bullpen session. He pitched in 104 innings in 38 games, but had only 6 wins, 12 losses and three holds with an ERA of 5.45. He has not seen his ball speed drop significantly, but in general, he had difficulties in fighting the batter. As he is a player with diverse capacity to utilize, attention is also focusing on where and how much Kim will maximize Han’s skills.