But those side arms are disappearing one by one. There are departures that Lotte did not want, unsavory events, and some people left the team in the end due to unexpected events. Within a year, the three fire bowler side arms disappeared.
Lee Kang-joon (23), who was considered an unfinished waiting list by throwing balls up to 150 kilometers or more, started the game. Lee was a valuable player in Lotte’s history. Lee Kang-joon, who was drafted in the second and third rounds (22nd overall) by KT in 2020, was noted for his fast-throwing sidearm when he was a kt player, and Lotte also took notice of his potential. At that time, KT lacked second base and offense, and eventually had no choice but to give up on Lee in order to get Oh Yoon-seok and Kim Jun-tae.
KT manager Lee Kang-chul acknowledged his more urgent position in reality, but even said, “It’s a waste of Lee Kang-joon.” Lotte also had high expectations for Lee’s growth as it did not have enough side-arms for immediate effect at the time. Although he did not play in many games in the first division, he thought he would be a good player in the future. Thus, he joined the military after the 2022 season. He applied for and passed the military athletic unit (Sangju Sangmu), and his enlistment was confirmed. It can be seen that Lotte paid a lot of attention to Lee Kang-joon.
However, Lotte threw a winning move to recruit Han Hyun-hee, who had remained in the FA market until then in January 2023. Following Yoo Kang-nam, Noh Jin-hyuk, the mound was reinforced with FA. Here, Kiwoom nominated Lee Kang-joon as a compensation player. Kiwoom had often chosen compensation instead of compensation players, but despite being confirmed to join the military, they boldly nominated him for the future. As Lotte saw, Kiwoom valued Lee Kang-joon highly. As such, Lee left Lotte in vain.
Lotte’s departure from the sidearm accelerated due to an absurd incident. Seo Joon-won, who was nominated by Lotte in 2019 as the ace player for Kyungnam High School and the national team, was caught up in an unsavory incident and left just before the 2023 season. Seo, who grew slower than the given opportunity, was expected to see his skills improve ahead of the 2023 season. He was also a fire bowler who could throw up to 150 kilometers or more. However, due to an unsavory incident, he was immediately dismissed and disappeared from the baseball world without even realizing his potential.
Immediately after the opening of the game in 2024, Woo Kang-hoon (22), the last bastion of the fireballer’s sidearm power, was traded and transferred. Woo Kang-hoon, who was drafted in the second and fifth rounds by Lotte in 2021, was a promising pitcher with high expectations for Lotte’s potential. Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung also made the opening entry after paying close attention to Woo’s pitching capability after taking the helm. However, now the infield was more urgent, forcing him to trade Woo. Lotte had no choice but to give up on Woo in order to secure Son Ho-young, who has potential to attack.
LG manager Yeom Kyung-yeop said he highly appreciated Woo Kang-hoon’s potential after seeing him pitch earlier. It is also a side arm resource with a maximum of 150 kilometers. Lotte also decided that it was not easy to give up on Woo Kang-hoon, but Son Ho-young was needed more for his current performance. Woo Kang-hoon is a player who even solved military problems and has no obstacles to baseball in the future. LG is known to have considered this as well.
Some say that this departure points to not only the departure of the side arm, but also the difficulty of establishing the Lotte squad. The growth of the promising players who had expected was slow, and the team’s situation was urgent, so the long-term arrangement of the promising players was not done well. In fact, Lotte, which has collected a lot of good prospects from the lower ranks over the past three years, is still at the level of promising players because it is currently in the military or has not been firmly established even after discharge. Attention is also being paid to whether Lotte’s long-term plan will be able to proceed directly without trial and error in the future.
BY: 토토사이트