Hanwha Eagles name national team skipper Ryu Ji-hyun as new manager on 3-year deal

The Hanwha Eagles have named national team manager Ryu Ji-hyun, 55, as the club's 15th manager in the Korea Baseball Organization.

Hanwha announced Tuesday that it had appointed Ryu as its new skipper on a three-year contract worth 2 billion won ($1.5 million).

The club parts ways with Kim Kyung-moon, who led the team from 2024 through this year, and begins a new chapter under Ryu.

Hanwha said it chose Ryu as the right person to achieve the club's goal of building a sustainably competitive team.

"I am grateful to the club for entrusting me with the managership of a great team like the Hanwha Eagles," Ryu said in a statement released through the club. "I will do my utmost to move toward becoming a powerhouse alongside our outstanding fans, using victories as fuel, and to build the storied franchise the club envisions."

Ryu played for the LG Twins from 1994 to 2004 and began his coaching career with LG after retiring, serving as a fielding and baserunning coach.

He received coaching training with the Seattle Mariners in Major League Baseball from 2007 to 2008, then returned to LG, where he served in various roles including strategy, baserunning and fielding coach before becoming bench coach from 2018 to 2020.

Ryu then managed LG from 2021 to 2022, guiding the team to the postseason.

He also steadily built his credentials with the national team.

Ryu served as a fielding and baserunning coach at the 2006 and 2013 World Baseball Classic and contributed to gold-medal runs as a coach at the 2014 Incheon, 2018 Jakarta-Palembang and 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.

He joined the national team as bench coach for the 2023 Asia Professional Baseball Championship and the 2024 Premier12.

Appointed national team manager in January last year, Ryu delivered two notable results: a quarterfinal berth at the 2026 WBC and a gold medal at the 2026 Nagoya-Aichi Asian Games.

The South Korea squad Ryu led reached the WBC quarterfinals for the first time in 17 years, since 2009.

Ryu now returns to the KBO dugout for the first time in four years, this time in a Hanwha uniform.

Meanwhile, Seok Jang-hyun, former head of the management support division, has been tapped to succeed Sohn Hyuk as general manager.

The incoming general manager joined the Eagles in 2003 and has held a wide range of roles — scout, public relations, operations team leader, strategy team leader and head of the management support division — becoming the first person promoted from within the Eagles' staff ranks to serve as general manager.