NC veteran infielder Park Seok-min (38) wrote a disgraceful record for the largest annual salary reduction rate in the history of the KBO League. 

On the 27th, NC announced the completion of the 2023 season salary contract with 62 candidates for renewal. According to this, Park Seok-min’s annual salary was cut by a whopping 650 million won from 700 million won last year to 50 million won this year. The reduction rate of 92.9% is the highest ever in the KBO league. 

The previous record was 90%, held by two players. In 2011, LG pitcher Park Myung-hwan and Kiwoom outfielder Lee Taek-geun in 2020 recorded a 90% reduction rate side by side as 450 million won was cut from 500 million won the previous year to 50 million won. 

Park Seok-min signed a FA contract with NC in January 2020 for up to 3.4 billion won for 2+1 years. He received an annual salary of 700 million won last year as the last year of his free agent contract. However, in the summer of 2020, he caused a big stir as the instigator of the Sulfan scandal for violating the Corona 19 quarantine rules. 

While causing his social impact, he was suspended for 72 games by the KBO and 50 games by the club itself. It was only in June last year that a total of 122 game suspension was lifted and he returned to the ground, but he could not overcome the one-year blank.  스포츠토토

He had a batting average of 1.1 4.9 Lee (7-for-47) with no home runs and two RBIs in 16 games with the first team. After being excluded from the first team due to back pain at the end of July, he did not come up until the end of the season, and naturally rumors of his retirement came out. 

However, NC, where third baseman resources such as Noh Jin-hyeok (Lotte) and Park Joon-young (Doosan) escaped, reached out to Park Seok-min once again. Park Seok-min also accepted a 93% salary cut with the attitude of Baek Ui-jong, and competes with juniors such as Seo Ho-cheol and Do Tae-hoon as a candidate for the starting third baseman in the new season. 

Previously, Park Myung-hwan and Lee Taek-geun, who had the highest annual salary reduction rate of 90%, did not achieve significant results.

Suffering from the aftermath of a shoulder injury, Park Myung-hwan never made it to the 1st team in 2011 and ended up appearing in 4 games in the 2nd team. He was not called up to the first team in 2012 either, and was released from LG after the season. After building his body through personal training for a year in 2013, he finished his career as a player in NC in 2014-2015. 

Lee Taek-geun took a break in 2019, including being suspended for 36 games for assaulting a junior. He couldn’t overcome his 1-year gap in practice. In 2020, he had to finish his career as a player unfortunately with a batting average of 1.9 3 Lee (11 hits in 57 at-bats), no home runs and 7 RBIs in 20 first-team games.