According to a baseball source on the 16th, Lotte has recently discussed the contract with manager Kim and is coordinating detailed conditions after completing an agreement in principle. The decision came after he highly appreciated the leadership of manager Kim, who took over as the head coach of the Doosan Bears in 2015 and led him to a strong team until he stepped down after the 2022 season. As Lotte failed to advance to the postseason (PS), head coach Kim is expected to start identifying the team from the final camp.
This season, Lotte played the rest of the games under Lee Jong-un, who served as coach of the Futures (second division) team, after former coach Larry Sutton stepped down in August due to health problems. However, as it failed to advance to PS in the end, a reform was needed.
Lotte has not been on PS for six consecutive seasons since 2018. Of the 11 seasons since 2013, only one season in 2017 has made it to the PS by ranking third. Lotte is the oldest team to enter PS among the current 10 clubs. From 2018 to last year, the ranking was 7 to 10 to 7 to 8 and only ranked 7th this season. It is a slump comparable to the darkest period in the history of the club, which stayed in 8th to 8th to 8th to 5th to 7th places (2001 to 2007).
Still, I had special expectations this season. In October last year, its parent company Lotte Holdings decided to raise 19 billion won in capital increase and invested heavily in the club, and after signing the team's first multi-year contract with ace Park Se-woong, it recruited free agents Yoo Kang-nam, Noh Jin-hyuk and Han Hyun-hee to raise expectations. Lotte seemed to show that it was "different this season" by finishing the first month of the opening in first place, but it fell rapidly and remained in the bottom after falling out of the PS qualification zone at the end of July. During this period, signs of the past emerged again, with internal strife surrounding the coaching staff and former coach Sutton putting down the baton. 슬롯머신
Coach Kim took over the baton while the atmosphere surrounding the team was never light. Coach Kim recorded 645 wins, 19 draws, and 485 losses (winning rate of 0.571) in the regular season for eight years as the head coach of Doosan. In 2015, his first year as a head coach, he led Doosan to the Korean Series (KS) championship, and in the following year, he even achieved an integrated championship. He is a great leader who has led the team to advance to KS for seven consecutive seasons and win three championships (2015, 2016, 2019) despite the fact that FA players have left the team one after another.