“I said I was hoping to win the championship within three years. I failed because I couldn’t keep my promise. The results speak for themselves.”
Like the overall review of the final accounts by coach Kim Tae-hyung of the professional baseball Lotte Giants, who completed a three-year contract, if Lotte had to choose between success and failure in the 2026 season, it would be failure.
Lotte, whose last fall baseball game was to take third place in the 2017 regular season and participate in the semi-playoffs, has not been invited to the postseason for nine consecutive years until this year.
After former coach Won-Woo Cho led the team to the postseason in 2017, Lotte never even smelled fall while going through coaches Sang-Moon Yang (2019), Moon-Hoe Heo (2020-2021), Larry Sutton (KBO registered name Sutton, 2021-2023), and Tae-Hyung Kim (2024-).
This year, Lotte fell to 6th place in the 5th game of the regular season and hovered at the bottom of the leaderboard, never entering the top 5.
The opening began with the suspension of four players who entered a gambling house during training camp in Taiwan, and on Children's Day when three of them returned, their ranking had already fallen to 8th place.
Lotte's team ERA, which was once at the top of the league in the first half of the year, was 4.72 and finished in 5th place.
The strength of the pitching staff was not bad, but the batting line, which ranked 8th with a team OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) of 0.732, could not support it.
In the batting lineup, veterans Jeon Jun-woo, Noh Jin-hyuk, and Yoo Kang-nam struggled with batting averages in the low .200s, while Yoon Dong-hee, who was growing into a key hitter, suffered growing pains with a season batting average of 0.231.
Due to the two-hit imbalance, the starting first and second basemen Na Seung-yeop and Ko Seung-min missed 30 games due to disciplinary action, so they were unable to gain momentum to improve.
However, it was also a year of income.
What Manager Kim Tae-hyung selected as an achievement this year was solidifying the 'center line' (in baseball, players responsible for the middle of the field from catcher to second baseman to shortstop to center fielder).
Catcher Son Seong-bin appeared in 129 games and showed himself as the team's starting pitcher with a batting average of 0.267, 8 home runs, and an OPS of 0.735.
Shortstop Jeon Min-jae played in 140 games and showed impressive performance in offense and defense with a batting average of 0.278, 9 home runs, and OPS of 0.707, while second baseman Ko Seung-min returned to service after being suspended with a batting average of 0.288, 16 home runs, and OPS 0.814 in 112 games.
Center fielder Hwang Seong-bin won his first stolen base title with a batting average of 0.289, OPS of 0.702, and 55 stolen bases in 121 games.
In addition, Han Dong-hee overcame his sluggishness at the beginning of the season and showed himself as the team's fourth hitter with a batting average of 0.306, 25 home runs, and an OPS of 0.915 in 109 games.
In addition, on the mound, five players exceeded the required number of innings (144), including Elvin Rodriguez (159⅔ innings), Na Kyun-an (149⅔ innings), Park Se-woong (147⅓ innings), Jeremy Beasley (147 innings), and Kim Jin-wook (144⅓ innings).
It is the first time in Lotte club history that five pitchers exceeded the required number of innings in a single season, and the first case since the KBO League solidified its 10-team system in 2015.
In addition, rookie Park Jung-min showed a solid performance with 9 wins, 4 losses, 14 holds, 1 save, and an ERA of 3.66 in 63 games, and Choi Jun-yong, who received special military service exemption through the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, played an all-weather firefighter on the mound with 5 wins, 3 losses, 10 holds, 15 saves, and an ERA of 3.71 in 61 games.
Now that the regular season is over, it is ‘front line time’.
With the possibility of renewing coach Kim Tae-hyung's contract not high, it is necessary to find a head coach who can simultaneously improve the performance and growth of the young players that have been built so far.
Lotte's biggest weakness is its player base.
Although generation replacement has taken place to some extent, it is difficult to calculate these as next year's power 'constant'.
In addition, after acquiring Yoo Kang-nam, Han Hyun-hee, and Noh Jin-hyuk in the free agent (FA) market in 2023, the wallet that has been closed for four years must be opened at the right time.
Only then can we achieve results that atone for Lotte fans, who show unwavering love despite poor performance.
A Lotte club official said, “A consensus has been formed internally about the positions that are lacking,” and hinted that they would closely watch market movements.
