93% annual salary cut Men’s crisis continues.
NC veteran third baseman Park Seok-min (38) politely refuses to be interviewed by reporters at the spring camp set up at Annex Field in Reed Park, Tucson, Arizona. He is determined to stand in front of the fans after showing something with baseball. A reporter visited the NC camp twice, and Park Seok-min, with a tanned face, was sweating in both hitting and defense.
Park Seok-min drew a lot of attention with a whopping 93% salary cut ahead of this season. He signed a contract for only 50 million won this season from 700 million won for the 2022 season. NC was relentless when the FA 2+1 year 3.4 billion won contract ended. Over the past two years, he suffered from penalties for violating the COVID-19 quarantine rules and drinking alcohol, and suffered from residual injuries and had the worst time.
Manager Kang In-kwon picked Park Seok-min as the starting third baseman early this season. Yang Eui-ji (NC) and No Jin-hyuk (Lotte) left, and Lee Myung-gi (Hanwha) and Kwon Hee-dong (FA) broke up. In a situation where there are concerns about the weakening of the other line, I thought that there was no card like Park Seok-min to make up for the lack of long hitting power. Park Seok-min, who is healthy, can expect a long hit. Even if his athletic ability is not as good as in previous years, there are still expectations around 15 home runs.
However, it is unknown whether Park Seok-min will be able to become a full-time starter. NC should prepare for Park Seok-min’s pace decline. There are two plan Bs. The main characters are Do Tae-hun (30) and Seo Ho-cheol (27). Do Tae-hun is a left-handed infielder, but batting is a concern with a career batting average of 0.204. Seo Ho-cheol rose to the batting title in the Southern League of the Futures League with a batting average of 0.388 in Sangmu in 2021. However, he did not stand out in the first team last year with a batting average of 0.205.
NC needs to find a hot corner protagonist in the long run. Noh Jin-hyeok left Park Joon-young (Doosan). It is important that one of Do Tae-hoon or Seo Ho-cheol grow as much as possible. In that respect, the practice game against the national team held at the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Arizona, USA on the 17th (hereafter Korean time) was worth paying attention to. 스포츠토토
Do Tae-hoon started as third baseman at number 3 and got 3 hits in 5 at-bats, and Seo Ho-cheol started as second baseman at number 7 and scored 1 hit and 1 RBI in 4 at-bats. Do Tae-hoon got hits from Kim Gwang-hyeon and Go Woo-seok, and Seo Ho-cheol got hits from Jung Woo-young. Results obtained against pitchers representing Korea. The two prepared an opportunity to prepare for the season with confidence.