Lotte decided to receive compensation from Ahn Chi-hong, who moved to Hanwha on the 27th, only for compensation, not players. With the transfer of B-class FA Ahn Chi-hong to Hanwha, Lotte was able to receive 100% of the previous year’s salary or 200% of the previous year’s salary without a compensation player, except for 25 protected players.
Lotte chose the latter. While most teams tend to choose compensation players if they lose the FA, Lotte has decided to accept compensation only after agonizing until the deadline for FA compensation decision on Monday. The team has completed the FA compensation process by collecting 1 billion won (1 million U.S. dollars) in compensation, which is equivalent to 200 percent of Ahn Chi-hong’s 500 million won (approx. 온라인경마
If Lotte chose a compensation player, it could only receive 500 million won in compensation. From Lotte’s point of view, it judged that Hanwha did not have a compensation player worth 500 million won.
It can be interpreted in two ways. First of all, Hanwha’s player base is that thin. Hanwha, which has remained at the 9th to 10th place for the past five years, is the weakest team in the league, and has a very wide gap between its starting lineup and backup. It is not unusual for a player who is not on the list of 25 players who are not even 20 players, to be valued lower than 500 million won (approx. Hanwha cannot simply rejoice that there is no leak of compensation players as it means that Debs is weak.
However, the Hanwha Debs are not as barren as they were in the past. In other words, the Hanwha Eagles has come up with a good list of players to protect. As the team had been gathering many promising players for years, it failed to immediately make it to the list of players to protect, but within that list, it formed the best list. Although it was expected that there would be a leak from the pitcher’s side, Lotte was also well-resourced and was not tempting.
Lotte focused on filling in Ahn Chi-hong’s vacancy by singling out infielders Oh Sun-jin and Choi Hang in the second draft. The pitcher’s side needed a left-handed bullpen, but the Hanwha compensation players lacked sufficient resources. Eventually, Lotte acquired the right to select the fifth round of the 2025 rookie draft to LG, and made a trade to receive veteran left-handed bullpen pitcher Jin Hae-soo.
Hanwha recruited An Chi-hong as an FA for up to 7.2 billion won for 4+2 years on the 19th and started working on the list of protected players early. It is known that some of the full-strength pitchers were immediately missing because pitcher Debs is better than fielders. Looking at Hanwha’s moves, he was prepared to leak pitchers. In the second draft of recruiting An Chi-hong, he recruited right-hander Lee Sang-gyu as the second pick in the first round and sidearm Bae Min-seo as the 13th pick in the third round to prepare for possible leakage of compensation players.
Hanwha paid keen attention to the designation of a compensation player, saying, “Who will Lotte take?” Given that Lotte, which immediately focuses on power, would recruit a pitcher, the team prepared an alternative resource, but its expectations were not met. As Lotte chose compensation after careful consideration, Hanwha can now protect even one more player’s full capacity without leaking compensation players. The outcome is not bad for Hanwha, which only needs one player. As a result, the cost of recruiting Ahn Chi-hong has increased to up to 8.2 billion won (approx. 1 billion won) as compensation was added to the contract worth 7.2 billion won (approx.