Kim Kang-min faced former SSG general manager Kim Sung-yong on October 31. On the evening of SSG’s replacement of Kim Won-hyung, they discussed their career path for the first time. It is known as the only meeting.
The player had a great intention to extend his active duty, but the club was not considering a path other than retirement. Naturally, no agreement was reached. Unlike left-hander Kim Tae-hoon, who announced his retirement during the season from the list of players excluded from protection submitted by SSG ahead of the second draft held on the 22nd, it failed to indicate that he would retire next to Kim Kang-min’s name. The player had no intention of retirement.
According to the stories of the frontrunners of other teams that were present in the draft on Tuesday, SSG did not seem swayed even after Hanwha nominated Kim Kang-min. “The moment Hanwha called for Kim Kang-min, the stadium suddenly became noisy. Everyone was buzzing around,” said a local team leader. Another local team’s frontrunners also shared the same situation and said, “I didn’t see any atmosphere that SSG was in big trouble at the time. Even when they left the stadium after the game, they were talking to each other smiling.” This means that SSG was insensitive to possible repercussions from whether or not other teams would nominate Kim Kang-min.
It is natural for a team to want a player who is in his 40s to retire. In the process, the degree of courtesy the team takes reveals its inclination and level. The “Kim Kang-min scandal,” which turned the league upside down, started from the fact that SSG released a Korean Series MVP and franchise star in the second draft just a year ago.
The key lies after that. SSG contacted Kim Kang-min on the afternoon of the day of the draft and tried to persuade him to retire by citing conditions different from those at the time of the interview. As public opinion started to boil over the record-breaking “Tosagupin,” he tried to belatedly correct the situation. 스포츠토토
In an interview with the media right after the draft, SSG made incomprehensible remarks, saying, “We were discussing retirement,” and “We didn’t expect (the nomination) at all.” Excluding the second draft protection player from the list is an act of acceptance by saying, “You can take him with you” to other teams. As a result, it is a violation of commercial morals to tell the player to retire after another team has drafted him. After watching the incident, other teams responded, “Wouldn’t you have done nothing when you had to complete consultations with the player in advance or you should have explained the situation to other teams and asked them not to be selected?”
At the center of the crisis is Kim Sung-yong, the former team leader. Kim, who was promoted to the team leader despite controversy after winning the championship last year, has been taking full control of management since the end of the season. Kim Won-hyung, who renewed his three-year contract, was replaced in a year, and caused controversy by directly mentioning another team’s coach ahead of the Korean Series in the process of appointing a successor as a candidate. Son Si-heon, who was training overseas with support from NC Dinosaurs, was intercepted as the Futures coach, causing controversy over his “commercial morality,” and recently contacted a coach from another team who had a multi-year contract left, and said he would recruit him recklessly, causing a conflict. The Kim Kang-min scandal broke out amid complaints among the team leaders, saying, “I understand you don’t know professional baseball, but you are completely ignoring the league order.”
SSG announced on the 25th that it “demoted” Kim Sung-yong, the general manager, by asking for responsibility for a series of incidents. It seems that he acknowledged that there was a problem and took disciplinary action, but the reality is different. Kim Sung-yong, the former general manager, moved to the head of the R&D center in the second division. The R&D center, which SSG established in 2022 advocating systematic fostering, was called “a place created for Kim Sung-yong” among those who know the club’s situation. There was no new R&D center director at SSG this year, when Kim Sung-yong, a high school coach, entered SSG last year as the head of the R&D center and became the head of the team in a year. Instead of stepping down as the general manager, he created and seated the position of the head of the R&D center, which disappeared in a year. In the Futures League, there are also coaches that Kim Sung-yong, the former general manager, recently replaced and newly selected. Although SSG emphasized that it was a “left-hand man,” many interpreted it as a “body.”
SSG, which took over SK, which once reigned as the “dynasties” in the league, and re-established it in 2021, has been turning the league into a chaos due to several incidents in just three years. If it is a normal professional baseball system that requires the attention of its parent group even in a single contract, is it possible for a general manager who doesn’t know much about it? There are many young frontrunners from SK who are well aware of the operation of the baseball team, but this is why many people think that it has come to this point when they match the rhythm with the general manager. Kim Kang-min, who failed to agree on retirement, was put out in the second draft and was actually selected, but the major frontrunners in the field have a sense of political affairs to the extent that they do not feel a sense of crisis.
It is also an inexperienced administration that the club, which had been neglecting to repeat the controversy by continuing to mass-produce well-intentioned victims from the dismissal of the manager, appointment, recruitment of the coach, and the second draft, has only taken “action” now, which is rare in professional baseball.
SSG said it would appoint a new team head under the leadership of CEO Min Kyung-sam for the time being. Is it fully aware of the assessment made in the current league? It is time for the team to show how it selects a new team head and how it moves forward.
