Kiwoom Heroes fail fall baseball for 4 consecutive years... Postseason elimination confirmed

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Dae-ho Lee = Professional baseball Kiwoom Heroes will not be able to play fall baseball in 2026.

Kiwoom bowed out 1-2 in the home game against NC Dinos held at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on the 5th.

With this loss, the ‘Tragic Number’, which means elimination from the postseason, disappeared.

For the fourth season since finishing second in the 2022 Korean Series, the Heroes' fall baseball calendar is empty again.

Kiwoom, which has only 43 wins (80 losses, 3 draws) in 126 games this season, cannot surpass the 5th-place Doosan Bears (61 wins, 57 losses, 4 draws) with 61 wins even if it wins all 18 remaining games.

The bigger problem is that for the first time since the launch of the 10-team system, we are on the verge of finishing 10th for four consecutive years.

The gap between Kiwoom and the Hanwha Eagles and Lotte Giants, tied for 8th place, is 11.5 games.

Although there is still some mathematical room, realistically, the bottom row of the leaderboard is close to a Kiwoom reserved seat.

In July 2023, due to the injury of Lee Jeong-hoo (San Francisco Giants), the 'rebuild' button was pressed to rebuild power, and since then, it has been a rolling trend every year.

There was a steady weakening of the team's power, with key players such as Lee Jeong-hoo, Kim Hye-sung (Los Angeles Dodgers), and Song Seong-moon (San Diego Padres) advancing to the Major League Baseball (MLB), but this cannot be an excuse for advancing to the postseason for four consecutive years.

There are two conditions for fans to understand the current situation of Kiwoom, which has failed to advance to the postseason for four consecutive years and is likely to be in last place for the fourth consecutive year.

The club must demonstrate a clear direction and possibility of building the power to challenge for the championship at any time, and the field must demonstrate reasonable operation in line with that.

Kiwoom did not meet any of the conditions. Due to the deep shadow of the team's leadership hanging over the bench, a laughable phenomenon has occurred where coach Seol Jong-jin, the head coach of the last-place team, feels sympathy for the team.

The top draft picks collected by moving around the lower ranks have not yet translated into results. Recruiting and nurturing promising talent are two different issues.

This year, Kiwoom is the club with the most players. The number of fielders who have gone to bat at least once is 35, the most in the league, and the number of pitchers is 33, second only to the LG Twins (34).

It is even called a ‘team of opportunity’ among high school players and parents about to be drafted.

However, it is questionable whether there is a proper training manual. The past four years have proven that players do not grow simply by sending them to first-team games.

TV commentator Lee Taek-geun, a former franchise star who has not spared criticism of Kiwoom on YouTube, pointed out, "From Kang Jung-ho to Song Seong-moon, they earned 77 billion won in postings alone, and I don't know where they spent it all."

This commentator pointed out the poor reality of the second team, saying, “Not only is there a baseball stadium environment, but there is not even a proper shower room or space to store bags.”

Rebuilding only makes sense if you have a destination and an arrival point. Rebuilding that fails to reveal this is just a crumpled excuse covering up a poor report card.

What the Kiwoom team, which has missed the fall baseball season for four consecutive years, needs to present to its fans is not a resolution for next season, but a schedule for 'what' to be done by 'when'.