Seon-gyu Ryu (52), the general manager who contributed to SSG’s combined victory, suddenly resigned voluntarily. The club denied it, but even the suspicion of ‘secret power’ was raised, and the baseball board is noisy.
There is another issue in this case. It is interpreted that it can be a signal of change in the management of the club, ‘erasing the color of SK’ and ‘direct intervention of the parent group’.
SSG never gave up first place throughout the 2022 season and won the’Wire to Wire’ championship. After that, he won the first Korean Series championship and had the best season ever.
At the center of that splendid achievement was former general manager Ryu Seon-gyu. Director Ryu Jeon joined the LG Twins in 1997 and started his front life, then joined the SK Wyverns, the predecessor of the current SSG Landers, in 2001. Afterwards, he held key positions such as marketing team planning part leader, public relations team leader, development team leader, strategic planning team leader, operation group leader, and data analysis group leader, and was appointed as the general manager in November 2020.
However, it wasn’t long before a big change took place in the club. In January 2021, when Shinsegae Group acquired SK Wyverns, SSG Landers was reborn. Attention was also focused on the future of current president Min Kyung-sam, as well as former head Ryu, the ’20-year SK Man’.
However, there was no radical change such as a change of leadership. For two years, General Manager Ryu led the way in making SSG a strong team by drawing reasonable non-FA multi-year contracts and major free agent contracts, and received applause from many fans.
Former general manager Ryu attended the awards ceremony after the season ended, but suddenly left the team in the form of voluntary resignation. There is a lot of gossip in the baseball world. Suspicion of ‘secret power’ was even raised. There are rumors that an outsider close to SSG owner (Shinsegae Vice Chairman) Jung Yong-jin (54) is directly or indirectly involved in the management of the club.
The SSG club issued an official statement on the 14th, claiming, “The suspicion of ‘non-profit’ is not true. The person mentioned by some is just one of those who serve as an advisor.” However, there are also rumors that the person concerned is close friends with the newly appointed general manager Kim Seong-yong (52). 안전놀이터
In the baseball world, it is believed that SSG has started working on ‘erasing the color of SK’ in earnest about this incident. An official from the baseball world said, “Over the past two years, SSG Landers did not make a big difference from SK without much change. For example, starting with the color of the uniform, most of them kept the big frame of SK days without replacement. The same was true in the field of baseball team management.” He predicted, “However, starting with the resignation of former general manager Ryu, I believe that the will of the Shinsegae E-Mart Group will be reflected more strongly in the baseball team.”
New head coach Kim Seong-yong is the first person to step on the professional stage after being recruited as the head of SSG’s Futures R&D center at the end of last year after serving as the baseball team coach for Yatap High School for 24 years. For this reason, there is an analysis that the owner Jeong Yong-jin is taking the change of head coach as an opportunity to strongly apply the color of SSG to Landers and to be more active in managing the club.