-Lee Dae-ho decreased by 1.7 billion and Son Ah-seop by 1.5 billion
-Shinsegae Team’s annual salary of 9.7 billion units
-Average of 12,273 million won for this year’s players
The annual salary of the Lotte Giants Team of the Korean Professional Baseball (KBO), which is a rich club, has been cut in half. It is analyzed by the effects of Daeho Lee, Aseop Son, and Byunghun Min. On the other hand, the salary of the club acquired by Shinsegae Group rose by 20%.
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As a result of analyzing the registration and annual salary status of 10 club players (excluding new and foreign players) released by the KBO secretariat on the 4th, the total annual salary of Lotte’s players decreased from 916 billion won last year to 5.22 billion won this year. Among the 10 clubs, the salary decline was the largest. The only clubs that are smaller than Lotte are KIA Tigers (4.86 billion won) and Hanwha Eagles (4,237 million won). Lotte was the only league in the 2019 league with a total annual salary of over 10 billion won, which was 10.83 billion won, and last year was the unrivaled No. 1 club in this field with an annual salary of over 9 billion won, but this time it fell to 8th place.
The situation was the same even when comparing only the top 28 people in the salary of each club. Lotte, which paid 821.2 billion won to 28 people last year, dropped 44.5% this year, giving 4.47 billion won this year. Also, the only clubs that are smaller than Lotte are KIA (3.95 billion won) and Hanwha (3.43 billion won).
This is because the salaries of Lotte Lee Dae-ho, Son A-seop, and Min Byung-hun have fallen sharply. Lee Dae-ho received 2.5 billion won last year, but this year, he signed a new free agent (FA) contract and received 800 million won. Last year, Son A-seop and Min Byung-hun received 2 billion won and 1.25 billion won, respectively, but this year, the last season before free agency, both drastically decreased to 500 million won. The lower the salary in the final season of the FA was, the more advantageous the player was. When recruiting a player released as a renewed free agent, the club must compensate the original club 200% of the previous year’s salary. It is known that if the previous annual salary decreases, the primary club loses the heavy compensation and loses in various ways due to the fierce competition for recruitment.
Lotte’s annual salary, which was reduced thanks to the three players, reached about 4 billion won. Nevertheless, Lee Dae-ho earned the highest amount in the club, and Son A-seop and Min Byung-hun received the second highest annual salary along with Jeon Jun-woo. Chihong Ahn (290 million won), Kyung-eun Roh (200 million won), and Wonjung Kim (170 million won) follow.
The most annual salary is the club acquired by Shinsegae Group. Thanks to the recruitment of’Big League’ Choo Shin-soo and catching Choi Ju-hwan in the free agency market, it jumped 20.3% from 7,980 million won last year to 97.65 billion won this year. The 2020 regular league and Korea series integrated championship team, NC Dinos, followed with 8,343 billion won and Samsung Lions with 7,357 billion won. However, the total annual salary of NC and Samsung decreased by about 10% compared to the previous year. Shinsegae Group and KT Wiz (6.7%) are the only clubs that have increased their salary.
The total annual salary of the 10 teams has also decreased by about 8,7 billion won to 6,290 billion won from 7,374 billion won last year. Excluding new players and foreign players, the average annual salary of 532 players from 10 clubs was 12,273 million won, down 15.1% from 144.48 million won last year. Following the retirement of high-paid players such as Park Yong-taek and Kim Tae-gyun, Yang Hyun-jong left for the U.S. professional baseball, and each club changed the operating stance through internal training and reconstruction, the reason for the decrease in salary is one of the reasons. The average annual salary of KBO League players surpassed 150 million won for the first time in 2018, and has continued to decline after reaching an all-time high of 150.65 million won in 2019. Reporter Kwon Yong-hui [email protected]