Lee Seung-yuop, the greatest slugger in South Korean baseball history, will make his managerial debut for a team coming off a down season, with pundits not giving his squad much of a chance to compete in 2023.

As first-year skipper for the Doosan Bears in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), Lee is driven to prove doubters wrong.

"We finished in ninth place last year, and we know experts don't consider us contenders, but we don't think we're that weak of a team," Lee said Saturday in a media scrum at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, before the Bears hosted the Lotte Giants on Opening Day for the 10-team league. "Before last year, we played in seven straight Korean Series. I think we have a lot of players who know how to play the game. I think missing the postseason last year will only help us grow further."

Lee admitted he has his share of concerns, namely the head injury that his starter Dylan File suffered after taking a batted ball to the head in spring training.

But with Opening Day here at last, Lee said he tried to keep things upbeat in the clubhouse.

"I told the players that no matter what happens, the coaching staff and I will have their backs," Lee said. "I just want them to go out and play baseball the way they know how."

Lee is the career KBO home run leader with 467, but he had a humble beginning in 1995. As a rookie with the Samsung Lions then, Lee didn't start the team's Opening Day game that year, which also took place at Jamsil.

"We lost that game because I wasn't in the starting lineup," Lee quipped. "Today, I am the starting manager. Hopefully, we will win this game and we will go from there."

Lee's counterpart for Saturday, Larry Sutton of the Giants, is very much in the same boat. The Giants finished in eighth place last year and haven't been to the postseason since 2017. They have not been on many preseason lists as a potential playoff threat.

But Sutton said it doesn't bother him at all, because the internal goal has always been to reach the Korean Series.

"I think it's a great thing because nobody outside of our team expects us to finish high. So we're the surprise team this year," Sutton said in his pregame scrum. "And I'm totally fine with that. Within our organization, everybody's on the same page. We want to be in the Korean Series. How we get there, our individual goals, that's the thing we've been focusing on."

Sutton said he and his players aren't worried about outside expectations.

"The expectations that we put on ourselves, what we demand from each other and from ourselves on a daily basis, our standard is perfection," the American manager said. "The expectations that are outside of our organization, we understand them, but we place a higher expectation on ourselves on what we're trying to achieve on a daily basis."

Source: Yonhap News Agency