Why Kim Han-soo, who volunteered to be an assistant coach when Lee Seung-yeop was hired in October 2022, changed roles to hitting coach after just one year.
The Doosan Bears announced the appointments of their first- and second-team coaching staffs for the 2024 season on Friday.
The first team is led by Lee Seung-yeop and consists of Park Heung-sik, pitching coach Cho Woong-chun and Park Jung-bae, hitting coach Kim Han-soo and Lee Young-soo, defense coach Cho Sung-hwan, third base coach Goto Koji, first base coach Jung Jin-ho, battery coach Serizawa Yuji, and training coaches Chun Jong-min, Cho Kwang-hee and Yoo Jong-soo.
While Park Heung-sik, Cho Woong-chun, and Jung Jin-ho are the newest additions to the first team, Doosan said, “Coach Kim Hans-soo, who led the team as head coach in the 2023 season, will focus on hitting.”
In addition to his new role as Doosan’s head coach, 안전놀이터 Lee chose former Samsung manager Kim Han-soo as his assistant coach to work right alongside him. It was Lee’s first coaching hire.
Lee had previously worked with Kim at the Samsung Lions.
Kim joined Samsung in 1994 and Lee joined Samsung in 1995, and they became the best third baseman and first baseman in the KBO, respectively.
After retiring from baseball in 2007, Kim became Samsung’s hitting coach, and when Lee returned to baseball in 2012 after a stint in Japan’s professional baseball league, the two became coaches and players. In 2017, when Kim took over as Samsung’s manager, Lee ended his playing career with a retirement tour.
Kim took a three-year break from coaching Samsung after the 2019 season. He then accepted an offer from Lee Seung-yup to return to the field as head coach.
Kim used his extensive coaching experience to help Doosan return to fall baseball last season after a two-year hiatus. At the same time, he faithfully assisted the ‘newbie’ Lee Seung-yeop, who took over as a professional manager without any coaching experience. As a career senior and head coach, he tried to compensate for the national team’s weakness of inexperience.
However, after the 2023 season
Lee asked the club to hire another former mentor, Park Heung-sik, and gave him the head coach position. Instead, he decided to entrust Kim Hans-soo to rebuild a batting lineup that ranked ninth in the league in batting average (2-for-5), ninth in runs scored (2-for-4), and 10th in RBIs (565) last season. Kim was the hitting coach during Samsung’s previous four consecutive losses.
In a recent interview at Jamsil Stadium, Lee Seung-yeop said, “After last season, we were careful about the composition of the coaching staff. “Our batting was a little sluggish last year, and Coach Kim has been doing a good job as a batting coach for a long time. I was also a pupil and have good memories of him. So we moved him to the hitting coach position,” he explained.
Another change in the coaching staff is the operational role of Coach Goto, who worked on the hitting of the Doosan hitters in 2018 and 2023. In the upcoming 2024 season, fans can expect to see Goto sign autographs for batters and runners from the third base side of the field instead of the dugout.
Although Goto has a strong image in Korea as a hitting specialist
He has coached players in various capacities since 2014, starting as the Yomiuri Giants’ second team development coach in Nippon Professional Baseball, then as the Yomiuri second team infield and first base coach in 2015, and as the Yomiuri third team outfield coach in 2016 and 2017.
“The third base position became vacant when Jung Soo-sung left, and I thought Goto was the right person for the job because he has about four years of experience as an offensive coach in Japan,” Lee said, “The base size is changing from this year. If we want to play aggressively, the role of third base coach is important. 파워볼사이트 추천 We wanted to recruit an experienced coach, so we appointed Goto as the third base coach.”
Meanwhile, Doosan has also been focusing on its secondary coaching staff, which will be responsible for development. The Futures (second team) will be led by Lee Jung-hoon, with pitching coaches Kwon Myung-chul, Kim Sang-jin, and Kim Ji-yong, hitting coach Lee Do-hyung, fielding coach Kang Seok-cheon, outfield coach Kim Dong-han, and battery coach Kim Jin-soo, while the rehabilitation and residual teams will be led by coaches Cho In-sung, Cho Chang-yeom, and Cho Kyung-taek, with training coaches Lee Kwang-woo and Lee Deok-hyun.