Watching others celebrate in the fall for the ninth straight year... Lotte isn’t a team that should collapse like this. It’s time to open the ‘wallet’

[Financial News]  “I said we’d be aiming to win the championship within three years. Since I failed to keep that promise, it’s a failure. The results speak for themselves.”
Much like the blunt self-assessment of manager Kim Tae-hyung, whose three-year contract expires at the end of this season, the Lotte Giants’ 2026 season is an unequivocal ‘failure.’ Lotte, which reached the semi-playoff round after finishing third in the regular season in 2017, has now missed the postseason for nine straight years. Since former manager Jo Won-woo, the team has gone through Yang Sang-moon, Heo Moon-hoe, Larry Sutton and even Kim Tae-hyung, the ‘championship specialist,’ yet autumn at Sajik has been cruelly cold.
But a closer look back at Lotte’s season shows it is by no means a team that should hang its head and be written off simply as a ‘failed bottom-of-the-table contender.’ The statistics and more detailed measures of on-field performance show that Lotte was not a team that should have collapsed so limply.

The pitching staff has the strongest case for feeling aggrieved. All five of Lotte’s starters—Elvin Rodriguez (1592⁄3 innings), Na Kyun-an (1492⁄3 innings), Park Se-woong (1471⁄3 innings), Jeremy Beasley (147 innings) and Kim Jin-wook (1441⁄3 innings)—surpassed the qualifying threshold of 144 innings. It is the first such feat in league history since the 10-team format began in 2015. Add the emergence of rookie Park Jung-min (nine wins, 14 holds) and the work of all-purpose reliever Choi Jun-yong (15 saves), and the pitching staff’s backbone was on a par with the league’s best.
Lotte also made impressive strides in building the ‘up-the-middle’ defense, baseball’s backbone. Catcher Son Sung-bin established himself behind the plate, while shortstop Jeon Min-jae and second baseman Ko Seung-min shored up the infield with strong performances on both sides of the ball. Center fielder Hwang Sung-bin stole 55 bases to claim the first stolen-base title of his career, and Han Dong-hee fully reclaimed the stature of a cleanup hitter, batting .306 with 25 home runs in 109 games. Foreign player Reyes, who collected 211 hits, has also been a steady presence in the heart of the lineup. It is a bitter irony that a team with effective starting pitching and a solid up-the-middle defense has missed the postseason for nine straight years.

Ultimately, Lotte was held back by ‘depth’ and external factors early in the season. The team got off to a poor start after key players were disciplined during spring training in Taiwan, and the simultaneous batting slumps of veterans Jeon Jun-woo, Noh Jin-hyuk and Yoo Kang-nam—whose averages were in the low .200s—were costly. The pitching and hitting remained badly out of sync. With a thin bench behind the established starters, the team could not make up for its key hitters’ struggles or the gaps left by the suspensions, and ultimately slumped to a halt.
The time on the field is over, and now it’s ‘the front office’s turn.’ The foundation is somewhat in place. Having established that this roster is not one that should collapse like this, the team is now in urgent need of outside additions to fill its gaps.


With a Kim Tae-hyung extension unlikely, Lotte must find a new manager who can deliver both the growth of its young players and results. Most important of all is ‘a decisive front office.’ The team must open its wallet in the free-agent (FA) market—which has been firmly shut for four years since the 2023 signings of Yoo Kang-nam, Han Hyun-hee and Noh Jin-hyuk—and quickly shore up its thin depth with targeted additions.
The only way the club can atone to the fans who have quietly filled Sajik Stadium through nine long years of darkness is with ‘bold investment’ to add real substance to this valuable core.
[email protected] Jeon Sang-il Reporter