I’m worried about where I can play more” Son Ah-seop, the reason why he left ‘hometown’ Lotte and moved to NC
"I thought a lot about where I could happily play baseball (more)."
Son Ah-seop (36, NC Dinos), who entered his second prime by becoming the KBO League batting king in the 2023 season, recently appeared on Lee Dae-ho's YouTube channel 'Lee Dae-ho [RE:DAEHO]' and left his former team, the Lotte Giants, to become a 'Yeongnam rival'. He revealed the reason for moving to NC.
In response to Lee Dae-ho's question, "Why did you choose NC?" Son Ah-seop honestly confessed, "There is no need to lie. First, there was a big difference in amount." He said, “Of course, salary is not everything, but for a professional baseball player, salary is ultimately the player’s value,” and revealed that there was a large difference in the offered amount between Lotte and NC during the FA negotiations.
Son Ah-seop, who qualified for the second time as a free agent after the end of the 2021 season, signed a four-year contract worth a total of 6.4 billion won with NC, which is trying to strengthen the outfield. At the time, it was reported that the size of the contract proposed by Lotte, the original team, did not reach NC.
Son Ah-seop cited the unstable position as the second reason. Son Ah-seop said, “At that time, the concept was that Lotte was trying to rebuild. As a result, I felt that my position would be narrowed.” He added, “I am actually a player who aims to play all games every year, and I felt happy about playing. “I felt that if I did something wrong, the number of games would decrease and I might get caught in platoon, so I had that kind of anxiety,” he said.
Son Ah-seop said, "Of course, I can't rule out financial factors at all, but in fact, what was bigger than that was that I thought a lot about where and when I could play baseball happily." He continued, "Actually, my batting average against left-handed pitchers was very high. Nevertheless, I also have memories of missing out when left-handed pitchers came out. I think that was a bit big (the reason I decided to transfer). I wanted to play a lot of games." revealed.
Son Ah-seop, who graduated from Busan High School and entered the professional world as the 29th pick in the second, fourth round of the 2007 rookie draft, played an active role as a franchise star representing Lotte for 15 years. Son Ah-seop, who recorded a batting average of .300 for 9 consecutive seasons from 2010 to 2018, faltered to a batting average of 0.295 in 2019, but regained the batting average of .300 again in 2020 (0.352) and 2021 (0.319), showing that he is in good health.
However, he hit only 3 home runs in 2021, and his streak of double-digit home runs stopped at 8 seasons (2013-2020), and his OPS also fell from 0.907 in 2020 to 0.787 in 2021. Lotte made a cool assessment of Son A-seop's value due to his decreased slugging power and defensive anxiety, and Son A-seop ultimately chose to transfer to NC, which recognized his value.
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