The Hanwha Eagles once again fired their manager during the season.
After winning the match against the Samsung Lions 4-0 at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon on the 12th, Hanwha announced the appointment of Choi Won-ho as the 13th head coach. Among the five paragraphs in the press release for director Choi’s appointment, the mention of coach Subero was only one line, ‘decided to terminate the contract’.메이저사이트 That was all there was to the contract termination announcement.
Was Hanwha a manager worthy of such negligence? Hanwha announced the appointment of head coach Subero in October 2020. Choi Won-ho, acting manager at the time, who succeeded former manager Han Yong-deok, led the team well in the second half, so the possibility of official supervision was predicted, but Hanwha chose an unprecedented first foreign manager.
Let’s take a look at Hanwha’s situation at the time. Hanwha released 19 players in addition to Kim Tae-gyun, who had predicted retirement after the season. A large number of veteran players such as Kim Hoi-seong, Song Kwang-min, Ahn Young-myeong, Yang Yang-woo, Lee Yong-gyu, and Choi Jin-haeng were on the list for release. Even though Lee Yong-gyu was the only outfielder that year, he was boldly sent out. It was because of the three letters ‘rebuilding’ that began to dominate Hanwha.
▲ Coach Subero talking to the players. ⓒHanwha Eagles
Hanwha appointed Subero as head coach and said, “While coaching a number of minor league teams, he showed excellent ability in discovering promising players. He also played a pivotal role in the successful rebuilding process of the Milwaukee Brewers.” Promoted.
Coach Subero took charge of Hanwha for a little over two years after that, recording 106 wins, 15 draws, and 198 losses with a win rate of 0.349. He had the lowest winning percentage among coaches during the same period. In terms of numbers alone, he was by no means a successful manager. However, coach Subero was a person with a sense of mission for Hanwha’s rebuilding more than anyone else.
In fact, it wasn’t long after he took office that a rift began to form between Hanwha and Subero. When coach Subero first grasped the KBO league, he said it was an “unfamiliar system.” He said, “The United States has several levels of minor leagues under the major leagues, so each level has a different purpose. In Korea, it is necessary to train in the major leagues. A 19-year-old pitcher must face a 30-year-old veteran hitter.” Director Subero had to earn from the concept of ‘Korean style rebuilding’.
While coach Subero was embarrassed, Hanwha set the team slogan for the 2021 season, the first year, as ‘This Is Our Way’. It means that we are going our own way, but at the time, coach Subero said the most often, “Please look at the process rather than the result.” Coach Subero’s philosophy to focus on the rebuilding process when others judge victory or defeat was implied in the slogan. In other words, the Hanwha club put coach Subero at the fore in rebuilding.
▲ Coach Subero emphasized the ‘freedom to fail’ to the players.
But this year, cracks were especially noticeable. Hanwha, which opened its wallet for external recruitment for the first time since 2017 by catching three free agents Chae Eun-seong, Lee Tae-yang, and Oh Sun-jin, made changes to the coaching staff and said, “If coach Subero has been able to show his own color within his authority over the past two years, In the third year season, the team and individual players need clear growth,” he explained. He strengthened the coaching staff of the 2nd team, including Kim Seong-gap, who is in charge of the remaining team, and asked coach Subero to focus on the 1st team’s performance.
However, in April, Hanwha’s performance fell further than the preceding two years. The 30% win rate collapsed. One foreign pitcher left the opening game, and the foreign batter went to the second team with a batting average of 10%. Aside from the situation where there was a big hole in the foreign players who accounted for a large portion of the team’s power, the coaches and players who had never played a game to win recently seemed to be more at a loss due to the sudden pressure on their performance.
Some criticize Subero for not knowing how to win. That’s right. However, coach Subero did not come to Hanwha to compete for rankings. Even a week before his resignation, coach Subero told the reporters, “Hanwha will one day smile. I don’t know when my end will come, but I will continue to plant seeds.” The club declared ‘winning baseball’ this year, but the manager still had a sense of mission in rebuilding.
The important thing is that it was Hanwha who gave coach Subero three years to do so. The club can never be free from manager Subero’s failure. If he was determined to somehow perform well this year, he would rather have terminated his contract after the end of last season. If coach Subero tried to taste the sweetness of the rebuilding result, that would be the failure of the Hanwha front desk.
Bangin, who has been devoted to fostering in a vast depth all his life, did not know the Korean ‘battle’ that squeezes victory even in a paper-like depth. And Hanwha did not know how to use Subero properly. It was released in just one sentence after 2 years of promoting only Sube without any noticeable achievements at the front. It is the worst parting that a club and a manager can do.