When I was young, I froze and overturned my preconceived notions of a master...Lotte Trade Blessings Why Shine Like Gold
May 19, 2025
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Lotte Giants manager Kim Tae-hyung said, "It is just amazing to watch shortstop Jeon Min-jae (26)'s performance this season. In 2018, when head coach Kim was leading the Doosan Bears' golden age. Jeon Min-jae was a rookie who graduated from Daejeon High School that year and joined Doosan in the 40th place in the second round of the rookie draft. Jeon Min-jae was evaluated as having a very good defense when he joined the team, but the hit was not enough to play in the first team.
Coach Kim saw Jeon Min-jae when he put backup players in the first team one by one when he tested them. Like any young player, it was noticeable that he could not play himself to consistently use him in the first team. It is not enough to push out Kim Jae-ho (retired) and Huh Kyung-min (kt Wiz), who were the main pillars of Doosan's infield at the time. In the end, he came back after solving the military problem, and only played 58 games in the first team for five years until 2022, when head coach Kim took the helm.
While manager Kim was a wild man in 2023 and took over as Lotte manager in 2024, Jeon Min-jae was showing his presence little by little in Doosan. Doosan, preparing for the infield generation change, actively gave young players a chance to play in the first team to gain experience. Jeon Min-jae played as many as 100 games last year under the team's stance. It was a huge change for the player who played 35 games in the first team in a season.
There was a blow to the background of Jeon Min-jae's ability to increase his chances to play last season. His performance in the season may seem normal with a batting average of 0.246 (61 hits in 248 at-bats), two homers and 32 RBIs, but he was gradually opening his eyes to hitting.
Regarding the background of the improvement in hitting last year, Jeon Min-jae said, `I haven't tried much differently. He said, "I'm hitting it with this idea of hitting it exactly with the bat no matter what."
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In terms of power reinforcement, Lotte had no choice but to put more weight on recruiting Jeong Cheol-won because it was desperate to reinforce its bullpen. Jung Chul-won is faithfully fulfilling his mission as expected, and coach Kim never expected Jeon Min-jae to emerge as Lotte's hit product.
Coach Kim said "It's early in the season, but I didn't know (former) Min-jae would do this much." When I was at Doosan, I was young, so I couldn't play properly because I was frozen."
With the opening, coach Kim's preconceived notions completely disappeared as Jeon Min-jae swung his bat fiercely at the plate, especially as he showed a solid defense as a shortstop. Now, even before Jeon Min-jae's story came out, head coach Kim even mentioned Jeon Min-jae and praised him.
Jeon Min-jae is batting .392 (40 hits in 102 at-bats) with two home runs, 16 RBIs and an OPS of 0.947 in 33 games. Lotte is currently tied for second place and is considered one of the reasons for creating a sensation. He was away for a while due to an intraocular hemorrhage caused by a headshot injury, but as soon as he returned on the 17th, he made four hits in nine at-bats (one home run) and six RBIs, wiping out his injury concerns.
Jeon Min-jae is currently drawing more attention with his batting, but Kim praises the defense more. Director Kim said "He's doing much better than I thought in defense movements" expressed satisfaction.
When Kim usually talks about promising players, he says, `Gold is gold and copper is copper. There are players who can't go up (even if it's gold), but if they go up, it becomes gold. Even if there is a player who plays because he likes to play even though he is a dong, he says, "It's not going well until now."
Coach Kim did not say whether Jeon Min-jae was gold or copper, but it seems clear that Jeon Min-jae is the most shiny player at bat these days.
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This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
