Who’s Rocking the Lotte: Do those who want to sink the ship in crisis deserve to be on board?


Who’s rocking the Lotte Giants, and whether those who try to run the ship aground in a crisis deserve to be on board.

Opportunists launch their activities during a crisis. They inflate internal crises and conflicts and project them externally, shaking organizational cohesion. Rather than fixing and improving the situation, they focus on inflating the crisis further by hiding behind anonymity or someone else.

All the while, they present themselves as having the organization’s best interests at heart. And after the storm has passed, they naturally take on new roles or look out for their own interests, because their intention or interest is not in the smooth sailing of the ship, but in taking more for themselves.

This is a typical behavior of those who want to take advantage of the chaos. These are the same people who promoted the “crisis theory” that appeared as if they had been waiting for Lotte’s June slump, and the same people who appeared when the process of changing the coaching staff became public knowledge.

On the afternoon of the 27th, Lotte announced that it had made changes to its coaching staff to “refresh the team’s atmosphere.” Lotte Futures head coach Lee Jong-woon will take over as first-team head coach, while Park Heung-sik, who previously served as head coach and hitting coach, will focus on being the main hitting coach.

Conditioning coach Kim Hyun-wook will become the first-team pitching coach, and former first-team pitching coach Bae Young-soo will move to the role of Futures general manager to oversee the entire Futures squad. Also on the same day, assistant hitting coach Ryan Long was released from the first team.

The changes were not immediately announced by Lotte before the game due to an article published by an online media outlet on the morning of the 27th about the coaching staff. It explained that “some coaching staff members protested the coach’s instructions on the field, and the players watched the process.

Subsequent reports even mentioned the real names of the coaching staff, so Lotte actively defended itself.

A Lotte representative said, “This is not a protest. There may have been some disagreements in the natural communication process between the manager and the coaching staff, but there was no extreme confrontation,” he said, emphasizing that it was a decision to renew the team’s atmosphere.

It does not appear that there were no conflicts at all. “It’s true that there was actually a conflict between a veteran coach and the manager,” said an official familiar with Lotte’s situation, “and I understand that Lotte head coach Larry Sutton requested a change of position as the situation continued.”

Another source familiar with Lotte’s situation also confirmed that there was a conflict, saying, “It seems to be true that while the team is struggling and the manager and coaching staff are trying to find a solution, different opinions can be expressed, and it has partly manifested itself as a conflict.”

However, the official added, “The coach’s ideas and the players’ ideas, the coaching staff’s views and the players’ views, and the coaching staff’s views and the coach’s views can all be different,” and said, “The coach and the coaching staff are a community looking for a good direction. When a team is in a good situation, things that can be sutured and resolved internally are usually the first reason for problems, but in the end, there is no cause, only the lack of results.” He diagnosed that the reality of the externally known ‘Lotte Coaching Staff Sacking Case’ was the biggest cause of Lotte’s slump.

However, there were those who tried to capitalize on the friction, the team’s woes, and Lotte’s June slump.

“I know that there are people or factions within the club who are constantly leaking internal secrets to the outside world or attacking internal figures for their own gain, regardless of the team’s interests or direction,” said another person familiar with the situation. “It’s questionable whether people who are quiet when Lotte is cruising in April and May, but then show up as if they’ve been waiting to shake up the organization when the team is performing poorly in June, have the right to be members.”

The foreign director is exposing a leadership problem. Moreover, with the rapid decline in performance, the outside world has become more judgmental and cynical. If some people are upset and others are happy about this situation, the problem is very serious. If the people who are trying to muddy the waters with stories that aren’t essential have been in the shadows for years and have been preventing the club from improving for the sake of their boss, that’s a problem in itself.

The head coach was adamant about the “name-calling” allegations. “I made the changes to change the atmosphere, to change the squad,” Sutton said before the game on Sunday, “As you know, we had a bad June. We’ve had some injuries. We’ve had some injuries, so we’ve made some changes to shake things up,” he said, explaining the reasoning behind the coaching staff changes.

Sutton continued, “Obviously, there are areas where we need to grow. The offense, the bullpen, we’re not seeing the things that we’ve been seeing. We need to grow.”

The changes to the coaching staffs of the first team and the Futures were ultimately meant to revitalize the atmosphere and improve the performance of the first team. As for the rumors of discord, Sutton says, “There’s no problem. There’s good harmony, chemistry, team energy. We chose to make changes to change the atmosphere,” he said, repeatedly denying the rumors.

Importantly, Lotte is only 67 games into the season. They are currently in fourth place. It’s too early to tell if Lotte will be successful in the 2023 season. It’s too early to start pointing fingers at anyone when the priority is to overcome the current crisis.아톰카지노

While the entire team is trying to heal and move forward from the crisis, someone is trying to uproot and shake the team. And those are the real reefs that are blocking Lotte’s autumn dreams.


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