KIA General Manager Shim Jae-hak “Director Beom-ho Lee, Who has a Lot of Ideas, Is the Best Choice”
Shim Jae-hak, general manager of the professional baseball KIA Tigers, explained, “With less than 40 days left until the start of the regular season, I think Coach Beom-ho Lee was the best choice as a leader to calm the team atmosphere and provide new leadership.”
On the 13th, the KIA club appointed Coach Beom-ho Lee, who is currently the first-team batting coach and is leading the players in the first spring camp set up in Canberra, Australia, as the 11th coach.
The terms of the contract are 900 million won, including a contract period of 2 years, a down payment of 300 million won, and an annual salary of 300 million won. 카지노
Coach Lee plans to focus on preparing for the regular season without a hitch by reorienting KIA, which was shaken by the dismissal of former coach Kim Jong-guk.
Coach Lee, who played for the Hanwha Eagles for 10 years and also played for the Softbank Hawks of the Japanese professional baseball team, is not a Tigers franchise star.
However, during the nine years he played for KIA from 2011 to 2019, he showed off his extraordinary charisma and communication skills and was evaluated as a great leader in the future.
It is not unrelated to this that KIA tested his abilities by entrusting key positions to Coach Lee, such as Futures (2nd team) coach in 2021 and 1st team batting coach from 2022.
General Manager Shim introduced the selection process, saying, “In the special situation of having to appoint a coach just before the regular season, we held several meetings to select candidates for internal and external coaches.”
It is said that KIA team officials, including Manager Shim, were unable to rest even during the Lunar New Year holiday as they did not know when the approval of the parent company, Hyundai-Kia Motors Group, would run out.
The choice of KIA club field officials was internal promotion.
They agreed to entrust the important responsibility of repairing the team to a leader with completely new leadership, rather than relying on the name of the former Tigers player.
Director Shim said, “After we decided on a major direction by promoting an internal leader to director, we did not interview any external personnel as directors.”
Coach Lee, who is training in Australia, had a video interview with Director Shim and team leader personnel on the 10th, and the KIA club recorded the video interview and delivered it to Choi Jun-young, CEO of the KIA club.
The final decision on supervision by the parent company was made on the 13th.
General Manager Shim said, “Since I took office as general manager last year, I have often talked with the coaches to establish the direction of the club.”
He added, “Coach Lee provided many ideas, and in particular, at the club strategy seminar attended by CEO Choi last month, as a hitting coach, Lee “I think the director presented good content and probably received additional points in the selection process,” he said.
Director Shim heads to Australia this afternoon to discuss management plans for the club with coach Beom-ho Lee.
The vacant first-team hitting coach position will be filled with someone recommended by Coach Lee.