Lotte and Lee Dae-ho accompany two more years,’Distribution Dae-ho’ is the stimulant?
Reporter Park Ji-hoon [email protected]
Input: 2021-01-31 14:32:40Revision: 2021-01-31 18:48:20Published: 2021-01-31 15:56:08 (p. 19)
Lee Dae-ho (left) and Lee Seok-hwan, CEO of Lotte Giants, are shaking hands after completing the free agency contract on the 29th. Provided by Lotte Giants
Professional baseball Lotte Giants and the club’s franchise star Lee Dae-ho will be accompanied by two more years.
On the 29th of last month, Lotte and Daeho Lee finished negotiations for free agent (FA). Lotte Giants announced that they signed a free agency contract with Dae-ho Lee for two years, a total of 2.6 billion won (a contract fee of 800 million won, an annual salary of 800 million won, and an annual winning option of 100 million won).
The club has always played an active part in only one team except when Lee Dae-ho advances overseas, and highly appreciated his contribution to the team as a key player. Lotte plans to help finish the last period of active duty through this contract, which honors Lee Dae-ho’s career.
FA contract for ‘2 years total amount of 2.6 billion won’
Including’winning option 100 million won per year’
Negotiations rush to group-level decisions
Evaluation of the impact of Shinsegae and’Distribution War’
Career courtesy and active duty finishing procedure
Lee “Retired after winning KS within 2 years”
In the meantime, Lotte and Lee Dae-ho showed disagreements over the contract standards and conditions, and the prospect that the negotiations will take place in a long time has prevailed. The difference in perspective between Lee Dae-ho’s performance and the franchise star’s symbolism was large. In a YouTube interview, Lee Dae-ho indirectly revealed his dissatisfaction with the Lotte club’s player evaluation criteria, which emphasized the statistics indicators of saver metrics such as WAR (contribution to victory over substitute players) and OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage).
For this reason, the prospect of joining the spring camp lately was predominant in the baseball world. In fact, Lee Dae-ho’s name was omitted from the list of spring camps recently announced by the Lotte club, implying that negotiations would continue until February.
The free agency negotiations, which had been repeating the boring tug-of-war, were struck by the Lotte Group’s own arms. The club recently borrowed 5 billion won in management funds, but it is in a difficult situation, but the support from the group has helped.
Regarding this, some of the baseball world analyzed that Shinsegae’s acquisition of SK Wyverns was a stimulus. Recently, Shinsegae Group entered the professional baseball world when it took over the SK club.
As the distribution rival Shinsegae’s wide move, the gaze naturally turned to Lotte. If professional baseball opens this season, like SK and KT’s’Mobile Carrier Daejeon’, Lotte and Shinsegae Baseball Team’s’Distribution Daejeon’ are expected to attract great attention.
In addition, Shinsegae promised full support, including the construction of a dome stadium. Even the possibility of Shinsegae’s recruitment of Choo Shin-soo, who has the nomination right, is flowing, making it difficult for Lotte to’watch the fire across the river’.
After completing the contract, Lee Dae-ho will join the 2021 Spring Camp at Sajik Baseball Stadium from the 1st. Lee Dae-ho, who joined in the second round in 2001, played 1715 games in 15 seasons, batting 0.309, 332 homers, and 1243 RBIs.
Lee Dae-ho said, “I am very grateful to the club for having a good contract while exchanging good conversations,” and “I want to retire after winning the Korean Series within two years.”
Reporter Park Ji-hoon [email protected]