Will Chung Chul-won Reunite with 'Old Teacher' Director Kim Tae-hyung revive splendidly in the 2025 season
Will Chung Chul-won Reunite with 'Old Teacher' Director Kim Tae-hyung revive splendidly in the 2025 season
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Will Chung Cheol-won (Lotte Giants), who meets his teacher who has coached him in the past, succeed in reviving the 2025 season.안전놀이터
Jeong Cheol-won, a former Song Song Sun-jung and Ansan Technical High School, is a right-handed pitcher who was called by the Doosan Bears as the 20th overall in the second round in 2018. He received great attention for his many potentials and completed his military service as an active member from 2019 to 2021.
Above all, Jeong stood out the most during the 2022 season. Under the guidance of Kim Tae-hyung, the Doosan manager at the time, Jeong has established himself as a representative bullpen resource in the league, with four wins, three losses and three saves with 23 holds and an earned run average of 3.10 in 58 games (72.2 innings). After the end of the season, Jeong was also honored as the Rookie of the Year.
However, after the season ended, manager Kim Tae-hyung stepped down as Doosan's head coach, and the two parted ways. Coincidentally, Chung did not grow as much as expected afterwards. He also played as the closing pitcher for the 2023 season, but his sense of stability was less than in previous years. That year, he played 67 games (72.2 innings), 7 wins, 6 losses, 13 saves, 11 holds, and an ERA of 3.96.
The decline continued this season as well. He was selected as the closing pitcher before the season's opening, but struggled. He lost one and had two saves and an ERA of 3.38 in four games in March, but was sluggish in nine games in April with one win and four saves and an ERA of 6.75. He was eventually excluded from the first team roster on April 24.
Since then, Chung has not shown any signs of improvement, going further down to the second tier twice. Notably, he played in six games in September, but had an ERA of 13.50 with one hold. Thus, Chung had to face an unsatisfactory report card of 2-1 with six saves and an ERA of 6.40 with 36 games (32.1 innings) this year.
A big change has occurred to Chung recently. Lotte acquired him along with infielder Jeon Min-jae through a trade. Instead, the team gave up pitcher Choi Woo-in, outfielder Kim Min-seok and Choo Jae-hyun.
"We pursued this trade to strengthen our bullpen and infielders," Lotte said when it announced the trade news. "Jeong Cheol-won is a player that will be used in the first division bullpen. Jeon Min-jae also expressed expectations, saying, "I will strengthen our team's competitiveness by using infield defense."
It is a trade that is not bad for Chung. At a time when things are somewhat stagnant, changes can be a big motivation. Notably, Chung will be reunited with his former teacher Kim Tae-hyung, who has been at the helm of Lotte since this season, in two years. Kim is a person who knows Chung better than anyone else.
Will Chung be able to regain his peak performance and bounce back? If Chung recovers, Lotte, which struggled with 5.26 ERA in the bullpen last year, will also gain significant strength.