The Lotte Giants, who failed to fill the shortstop hole even after investing a large amount of money, are deeply worried. Although they have found a new starting player named Park Seung-wook (31), their weaknesses still stand out compared to other teams.
Lotte signed a four-year free agent contract with Roh Jin-hyuk, an offensive shortstop who hit double-digit homers (2018-2020) for three consecutive seasons in November 2022. Contrary to expectations, Roh suffered the worst slump. Roh, who had a monthly batting average of 0.154 between March and April, was demoted to the second tier.
After Noh Jin-hyuk was notified of the second division, Park Seung-wook and Lee Hak-joo began to take turns in shortstop positions. It was Park Seung-wook who survived to the end of the two players. Lee Hak-joo was canceled from the first division on July 13, and Park Seung-wook became Lotte’s main shortstop because he was not called up until the end of the season.
Park had a batting average of 0.262, seven homers, 53 RBIs and an OPS of 0.716, in 139 games in the 2024 season. He left a meaningful record in offense. Since his debut as a pro, he has played the most games in the first team, hit a career-high seven homers and recorded his first 100 hits (106 hits). Noh Jin-hyuk and Lee Hak-joo were sluggish, but they struggled in their own way.
The problem was defense. Having revealed his weakness in defense, Park did not appear to be the main player. With 23 errors in the 2024 season, Park tied for second with Park Chan-ho (KIA Tigers) and Park Sung-han (SSG Landers) in overall error category.
Park Chan-ho (1,120 ⅓ innings) and Park Sung-han (1,115 innings) worked over 1,100 defensive innings, recording 23 errors and making up some of their disappointment in defense with a batting average of 300. Park, on the other hand, recorded 22 errors in 833 innings as a shortstop, and frequently made fatal errors at important moments.
Unless conditions change for the next season, the main shortstop is highly likely to be Park Seung-wook. There is a very small chance that Lee Hak-joo and Roh Jin-hyuk, who are in their mid-30s, will rebound in the 2025 season. Young players who can play shortstop Kim Se-min and Han Tae-yang will finish their military service, but no guarantee of their performance in the first division can be guaranteed. Rookie Lee Ho-joon has no experience playing in full-time seasons.
Lotte’s shortstop position worries have plagued the team for a long time. Lotte, which could not find a stable shortstop on either side of offense or defense, started to solve shortstop position concerns with a foreign hitter card called Dixon Machado in 2020. Machado batted in the late-2020 (0.280 in 2020 and 0.279 in 2021) during the two seasons (2020-2021), and the number of errors was only 21 (10 in 2020 and 11 in 2021).
꽁머니‘s presence has stabilized Lotte’s defense as a whole. Rodong, who had ranked first in league errors for two consecutive seasons in 2018 (117) and 2019 (114), suffered a setback in 2020 by ranking at least fourth (94), and at least first in 2021 (85). However, Lotte eventually ended up accompanying Machado because it lacked the offensive power to use foreign batter slots as shortstop. After that, in 2022, Lotte remained at the bottom of its team’s shortstop batting average (0.209) and OPS (0.556), falling back into a swamp of shortstop agony. As a result, he made a bold investment in FA Noh Jin-hyuk, but the problem still remains unresolved.
If Lotte wants to solve its shortstop problem, it can enter the FA market again. Shim Woo-joon of KT Wiz, who has strong defense, will become an FA after the end of this season. However, chances are high that key relief pitchers Kim Won-joong and Koo Seung-min will apply for the FA. Both players performed below expectations in the 2024 season, but since there is no suitable substitute, they should strive to crack down on the players rather than recruit them from outside.
Lotte, which ranked second after the KIA Tigers (146 errors) with 123 mistakes, needs to stabilize its defense in order to qualify for the fall baseball next season. To this end, the shortstop issue, dubbed the “flower of defense,” should be resolved, but the 2024 season proved that it is too much to trust Park. Although the team has revealed its limitations, the wrinkles are getting bigger due to lack of resources to replace Park.