Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung said, "We have to go to fall baseball, really..."Please look forward to this year"

Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung said, "We have to go to fall baseball, really..."Please look forward to this year"

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Kim Tae-hyung (58), manager of the Lotte Giants in the professional baseball league, showed his unique anger at the departure hall of the spring camp, which can be said to be the true starting line of the season.스포츠토토

When asked about his goal for the 2025 season, the cool answer came back, "What do you have? I'm really going to go to fall baseball."

"When I opened the lid as an exhibition game at Lotte for the first time last year, I couldn't calculate it," Kim told reporters before departing for Taiwan, the first team's training site, through Incheon International Airport on Wednesday. "After the trade, the fielders were settled down, and the pitchers were in a bit of a mess. I think I will find more stability this year."

After entering the postseason for the last time in 2017, Lotte was not invited to fall baseball for seven consecutive years from 2018 to last year.

Coach Kim, who came to Busan as a "winning contractor," also tasted the bitterness last season, finishing seventh.

"If you look at it like this, (postseason competition) is tight," Kim said, adding, "Baseball always has variables, so please look forward to it this year. It will turn out much better than last year."

Whether Lotte will advance to the postseason this season depends on the starting lineup.

Only the existing Charlie Barnes, the new foreign pitchers Tucker Davidson and Park Se-woong are certain starting agents.

The fourth starter is expected to be Kim Jin-wook, who postponed his enlistment, and the fifth starter is an infinite competition.

"Last year, I was only good at two foreign pitchers. Still, I think Park will be better this year than last year," Kim said after selecting the starting pitcher as his "headache." Then there is Kim Jin-wook (fourth starter), and Na Kyun-an, Han Hyun-hee and Park Jin (five starters) are candidates.

Lotte, which has not made any significant moves in the free agent (FA) market this winter, brought in Jung Cheol-won through a trade with the Doosan Bears.
"He is a really necessary player behind (the bullpen). He has plenty of ball power. I believe he will do well," Kim said. "Of course, I brought him here based on his team's victory. If he wasn't going to use him as a must-winner, why would he bother bringing him here?"

Last season, Lotte succeeded in changing the generation of fielders as young players in their 20s, so-called "Yoon Na-go-hwang" (Yoon Dong-hee, Na Seung-yeop, Ko Seung-min, and Hwang Sung-bin), took the lead.

In particular, Kim pointed out Yoon Dong-hee and said, "It's not easy to maintain such a steady pace in the second year. You may feel pressured while trying to do better, but now that you know the manager's tendency, I think you will play baseball more comfortably."

As for the players who were not in their normal physical condition due to injury, he said, "Ko Seung-min says it's okay to train right away, and Yoo Kang-nam says it's okay to take it easy. Then we have to see (Choi) Jun-yong. "I don't know if I can match the opening game."

Coach Kim excluded veterans such as Roh Jin-hyuk and Kim Min-sung from the spring camp list.

"I wanted to see young players that I had never seen before. Jin-hyuk and Min-sung are all the players I saw last year," he said. "In a way, they fell behind in competition last year. They couldn't find their seats, and young players settled down right away."

They said, "The two players have a lot of experience, so there will be times when they will be needed. Now is the time to slowly build up and draw a big picture rather than going to training together."

Lotte builds up in the first training session in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and then moves to Miyazaki, Japan, for a second training camp focused on actual games.

Coach Kim said, "I told them to keep their training schedule tight, but they should never overdo it. Seniors take care of themselves, but young players can overdo it, so I told coaches to take good care of them."