Lotte Giants' Lee Dae-ho, the 'No. 4 hitter of Joseon', receives a bouquet of flowers from Doosan manager Kim Tae-hyung before the first game of his retirement tour against the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea, on July 28.

After six consecutive years without a fall baseball season, the Lotte Giants will begin planning for a new one. The first priority is to hire a new manager as soon as possible, and former Doosan Bears manager Kim Tae-hyung, who led the team to three Korean Series titles, is in the running.

Lotte won the final game of the 2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO League against the Hanwha Eagles 7-2 on Saturday at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon.

With a record of 68 wins and 76 losses, Lotte ended the season in seventh place. While it was a step up from last year's ranking, it was a disappointing finish for a team that invested heavily, signing Park Se-woong to a multi-year contract and bringing in free agents Yoo Kang-nam, Noh Jin-hyuk, and Han Hyun-hee.

Lotte raised expectations for fall baseball by taking over first place in mid-May and forming a "trilogy" with the LG Twins and SSG Landers by early June, but it went downhill from there, failing to make the postseason again.

Lotte is currently without a manager. Former manager Larry Sutton resigned on Aug. 28 due to health issues, and assistant coach Lee Jong-woon led the team for the remainder of the season as acting manager.

After reaching the postseason with a third-place finish in 2017, 카지노사이트랭크 Lotte finished 7th-10th-7th-8th-8th-7th. The team was unable to shake off its perennial bottom-of-the-pack image, and the atmosphere was turbulent this year, with infighting surrounding the coaching staff.

There are insiders and outsiders calling for a change of scenery, and Kim Tae-hyung has been touted as a possible candidate for the next manager.

Kim led Doosan to three Korean Series titles (2015, 2016, 2019) from 2015 to 2022, and was the first KBO manager to reach the Korean Series seven years in a row from 2015 to 2021.

Kim, whose contract with Doosan expired at the end of last year, has been working as a broadcast commentator this year.

Lotte declined to comment on Kim's appointment, saying, "Nothing has been decided yet." However, they did say that Kim has not been ruled out as a candidate for the job.

"The team is scheduled to begin final training in Sangdong at the end of this month," said a Lotte official, "and we plan to finalize the selection of a new coach within this month."

Lotte's plan is for the new coach to take over the team from the final training session and begin preparations for the new season.

With only two weeks left in October, the clock is ticking, but the club's search for a new coach is already underway. Now that the season is over, the search for a new coach will be accelerated.

Lotte's new coach is likely to be an external hire rather than an internal promotion. "It is a consistent principle of the club to appoint a competent coach," a Lotte official emphasized. 고스톱