Son Ah-seop, then of the NC Dinos, celebrates after getting a base hit against the SSG Landers during a Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game at Changwon NC Park in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, on July 6, 2025, in this file photo provided by the Dinos. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, August 1 (Korea Bizwire) — A day after being traded to the first-place club in South Korean baseball, veteran outfielder/designated hitter Son Ah-seop said Friday he will try to prove his worth on his new team.
The Hanwha Eagles acquired Son, 37, from the NC Dinos in exchange for cash and a third-round draft pick for 2026 in a major Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) trade Thursday night. The move came on the annual trade deadline.
The Eagles are leading the 10-team KBO with a record of 59-37-3 (wins-losses-ties), and they brought in the league’s all-time hits leader, long known for contact ability and on-base skills, as they try to lock down the regular-season title and earn a bye to the Korean Series.
In a parting interview uploaded on the Dinos’ YouTube channel, Son thanked fans of his former club.
“I am taking nothing but fond memories from my time with NC,” said Son, who signed with the Dinos as a free agent in December 2021 after 14 seasons with the Lotte Giants. “I hope fans will keep rooting for me. Now I will try to prove why the Eagles chose me.”
Son is a career .320 hitter with 2,583 hits. He was batting .300 through 76 games this year before hitting the sidelines on July 24 with an injury to his right side.
Son, who became the career hits king and won his first batting title in a Dinos uniform in 2023, said his NC tenure will be marked by disappointment.
“I just haven’t been good enough. I think I showed maybe 20 to 30 percent of what I am capable of,” he said. “On my new team, I will have to get myself together mentally and pour all of my energy into playing well the rest of the season.”
The Eagles have the league’s best pitching staff, as they lead the way with a 3.42 ERA, 903 strikeouts and a .241 opponents’ batting average. But they are in the middle of the pack in runs, hits and on-base plus slugging (OPS), among other categories.
Once Son gets healthy, the Eagles could make him their everyday leadoff man and hope he could provide much-needed jolt atop their lineup.
Through Thursday, the Eagles ranked eighth with a .248 batting average from the leadoff spot with .248 and dead last with a .320 on-base percentage.
Manager Kim Kyung-moon has cycled through a handful of players at the top of the order without finding his go-to guy.
Kim has also used a few different players in the right field, and those right fielders have combined for a .258 batting average and a .328 on-base percentage to rank eighth and seventh in the KBO, respectively.
Son isn’t going to be the defensive solution there, but he will at least offer more bat-to-ball and on-base skills than incumbents, such as Kim Tae-yean and Lee Jin-young.
The Eagles are trying to win their first Korean Series title since 1999. Son himself is chasing the first championship ring of his career.
(Yonhap)
