The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) club said Yang Seung-gwan will serve as the new bench coach for manager Kim Kyung-moon, while Yang Sang-moon will be the team’s new pitching coach. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 5 (Korea Bizwire) — The Hanwha Eagles announced a coaching staff reshuffle Friday, bringing in a new bench coach and pitching coach ahead of the second half of the season.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) club said Yang Seung-gwan will serve as the new bench coach for manager Kim Kyung-moon, while Yang Sang-moon will be the team’s new pitching coach.
The first half of the season wrapped up Thursday, and the campaign will resume Tuesday after the All-Star weekend.
The Eagles are trying to reach the postseason for the first time since 2018. Kim was hired as the new manager on June 2, when the Eagles were in eighth place. They have only played .500 ball since then, with a record of 12-12-1. At 36-44-2 overall, the Eagles are now in ninth place but they are 3.5 games out of the fifth and final postseason spot, compared with 4.5 games before Kim came aboard.
Yang Seung-gwan, 65, worked as the hitting coach and bench coach for the NC Dinos while Kim was manager there from 2013 to 2018.
Yang Sang-moon, 63, has had two different managerial stints with the Lotte Giants and most recently managed the LG Twins from 2014 to 2017. He later worked as general manager for the Twins.
He had been working as a KBO color analyst on cable TV and also as manager of the South Korean women’s national baseball team.
Kim and Yang Sang-moon go back decades, as teammates in middle school and again in college. In the KBO, they played together on the 1990 Taepyungyang Dolphins, with Yang as a middle-of-the-rotation starter and Kim as a backup catcher.
When the two met as opposing managers for the Dinos and the Twins during the 2014 postseason, Kim recalled their playing days together and said: “We weren’t just ordinary teammates. We were like brothers back then.”
At his introductory press conference on June 3, Kim had said he didn’t want to alter his coaching staff midseason and will instead try to finish up the season with the staff intact.
With the pair of sexagenarians joining, the Eagles’ coaching staff just grew much older. Kim is already the KBO’s oldest manager this year at 65.
Former bench coach Chung Kyoung-bae, 50, will now serve as the Eagles’ top hitting coach. Park Seung-min, 47, goes from pitching coach to the newly created position of pitching coordinator.
(Yonhap)
