Lotte Giants manager Larry Sutton steps down

Larry Sutton [NEWS1]

Lotte Giants manager Larry Sutton stepped down Monday for health reasons. The club will be led by acting coach Lee Jong-woon until the end of the 2023 KBO season.

“Coach Sutton expressed his wish to step down for health reasons after the game against the KT Wiz on Aug. 27,” the Lotte Giants said in a statement Monday. “After much consideration, the club has decided to respect Sutton’s wishes.”

Sutton missed Sunday's game against the Wiz, returning home shortly after arriving at the stadium due to health reasons.

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Sutton took the helm of the Busan club in May 2021, promoted from his previous role as Futures League coach when the club fired former manager Her Mun-hoe.

Sutton had originally applied for the job that went to Her in 2019, instead taking the Futures League position. After spending a year and a half coaching the team's future talent, Sutton was seen as being perfectly positioned to take the team as the team looked to focus more on younger rookies and player development.

Sutton was an unusually experienced pick for a foreign KBO manager, having played here himself for three seasons in the mid-2000s. He joined the now-defunct Hyundai Unicorns in 2005, finishing the year with a .292 batting average with 35 home runs and 102 RBIs, enough to top the league in both categories. He played another season with the Unicorns before moving to the Kia Tigers for one season in 2007.

Despite his credentials, Sutton struggled to do much to turn around the struggling Giants’ fortunes over the last two seasons. The Busan club, one of the oldest KBO’s founding teams, finished eighth out of 10 teams in both 2021 and 2022.

Things have improving slightly this season, with the Giants currently in seventh place on the table. With more than 40 games still to play, the club has an outside chance of making it back into the playoffs for the first time since 2017.

Acting coach Lee Jong-hoon will take the helm as the Giants take on the Hanwha Eagles on Tuesday.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]