Lotte manager Sutton voluntarily resigns…”Reason for your health”. I heard so

Lotte Giants manager Larry Sutton (53) voluntarily resigned.

The Lotte club announced in a press release on the afternoon of the 28th, “Sutton expressed his resignation for health reasons after the resignation KT Wiz game the previous day (27th), so the club decided to respect and accept Sutton’s will.” Starting with the match against the Hanwha Eagles in Daejeon on the 29th, senior coach Lee Jong-woon will lead the team for the remaining 36 games as acting coach.

Sutton was appointed as Lotte’s second-tier coach in October 2019, and immediately took office as the first-tier head coach after Huh Moon-hoe was replaced in May 2021. In the remaining 108 games of that year, he finished seventh with 50 wins, 50 losses, and 8 draws (0.500 winning rate). In 2021, it remained in eighth place (65 wins, 71 losses, 8 draws, 0.478) and in 2022 (64 wins, 76 losses, 4 draws, 0.457). This year, they competed in the top ranks in the early stages by recruiting a large number of FA players such as Yoo Kang-nam, Noh Jin-hyuk, and Han Hyun-hee, but gradually lost strength. He had a record of 50 wins and 58 losses (0.463) by losing seven consecutive games before resigning. Recently, he was absent from the dugout twice (17th and 27th) due to dizziness. His career record is 162 wins, 182 losses and 12 draws in 356 games (0.471).

Sutton’s leadership was critically damaged in June when rumors of internal discord flowed out. As Lotte’s performance, which had been continuing its momentum, slowed down, internal noise arose. Due to the so-called “resistance situation,” pitching coach Bae Young-soo went down to Futures (second division), and Futures coach Lee Jong-woon came up as the first-tier coach. Senior coach Lee Jong-woon was considered extremely unusual at the time because he was a leader who served as Lotte’s head coach in 2015 and took off his clothes after a year of contract.

With Sutton putting down the baton, there is no foreign coach left in the KBO League. Prior to Sutton, Hanwha Eagles coach Carlos Subero was replaced in May.

Along with Sutton’s voluntary resignation, attention is also being paid to Lotte General Manager Sung Min-kyu’s future course of action. Sung Min-kyu was appointed as the league’s youngest general manager in September 2019 with the so-called “process.” Since then, he has recruited coach Huh Moon-hoe and coach Sutton, but neither of them has completed their terms and stepped down. The failure to recruit FA players due to the team’s internal development, and the internal discord of the coaches are the reports he has received so far. 스포츠토토