8 Billion Investments Are You Fruiting After 3 Years? The story of the catcher's 15-year-old turnaround, batting average of 0.366, has been reborn as an altoran batter

May 11, 2025

8 Billion Investments Are You Fruiting After 3 Years? The story of the catcher's 15-year-old turnaround, batting average of 0.366, has been reborn as an altoran batter
photo courtesy of Lotte Giants



8 Billion Investments Are You Fruiting After 3 Years? The story of the catcher's 15-year-old turnaround, batting average of 0.366, has been reborn as an altoran batter
photo courtesy of Lotte Giants
8 Billion Investments Are You Fruiting After 3 Years? The story of the catcher's 15-year-old turnaround, batting average of 0.366, has been reborn as an altoran batter
photo courtesy of Lotte Giants
Will Lotte Giants Yoo Kang-nam finally be free from the yoke that has bound him.

Yoo Kang-nam's fire bat is unusual. He is batting .366 (30 hits in 82 times at bat) with three home runs and 1.010 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) this season.

When he was with the LG Twins, he played 130 games and 950 innings for five consecutive years, and was called the 'Geumgang Bulgo'. It could not have been achieved without solid durability and extraordinary sincerity.




Lotte, which highly valued this point, recruited him at an exceptional price of 8 billion won for four years in the winter of 2022. Lotte's weakness in the home turf, which was unknown in the baseball world, and the front office's judgment that highly valued Yoo Kang-nam was added to the geographical handicap of Busan. It was enough recognition for Yoo Kang-nam to dream of a new challenge.

But the last two years have been literally a hardship itself. The knee, which had already entered the 30th row, was not the same as before. When he was at LG, he hit double-digit home runs for five consecutive years and knocked on 20 home runs, but he couldn't expect much. Immediately after his transfer, his former team LG released 29 years of regret and also mixed with the Korean Series victory.

8 Billion Investments Are You Fruiting After 3 Years? The story of the catcher's 15-year-old turnaround, batting average of 0.366, has been reborn as an altoran batter
A game between the Kiwoom Heroes and the Lotte Giants at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on the 30th. Lotte Yoo Kang-nam is cheering after hitting a hit. Gocheok = Reporter Park Jae-man pjm@sportschosun.com /2025.04.30/
In the first season, despite living with minor injuries, he wore a mask for more than 820 innings and saved face. He also avoided humiliation by batting .261 with 10 home runs and an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of .726.




I ended up with a knee injury last year. He suffered from a severe batting slump from the beginning and was out of the season in the first half. The harsh term 'eat and run' bothered him.

Yoo Kang-nam wrote earlier, `I've refined myself one by one from the beginning, feeling that I have enough time to prepare for the new season"I once looked back. The desperate efforts seem to come to fruition. Both offense and defense are showing their best performance since joining Lotte, satisfying Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung, a former master catcher.

Especially at bat, he improved all at once from strength in swing, pioneering eyes, and patience. He was reborn as the center hitter of the team.




8 Billion Investments Are You Fruiting After 3 Years? The story of the catcher's 15-year-old turnaround, batting average of 0.366, has been reborn as an altoran batter
photo courtesy of Lotte Giants
In the match against the Suwon KT Wiz on the 10th, he also led his team to victory by achieving three outs with two hits, two runs and one walk from three times at bat.In his first at-bat, he hit a double on the left-field line, and in the fifth inning, he got on base with a walk and then homered. He pulled down Ko Young-pyo, the ace representing professional baseball, 'Goquels' before the fifth inning, and also doubled in the seventh inning to make veteran Woo Kyu-min flinch.

Can we now prove the value of 8 billion. When Yoo Kang-nam smiles brightly, Lotte's fall baseball gets that close.



This article was translated by Naver AI translator.