Win-Now (3)

"... You said you were the Scouting Team Leader? Let me ask you something. Is this kind of thing common?"

Sa Moon-jik appeared at the negotiation table looking utterly wrecked, a hollow shell of a man.

The Seoul Twins hadn't heard that he would be coming in person, so they'd assumed this was just another routine meeting with his agent — which was why Scout Team Leader Park Young-chul sat across the table instead of the general manager.

An ordinary office worker would have dodged the question or waited on orders from above while wearing an agonized expression. Park Young-chul was different. He settled into his seat with an easygoing air, wearing that faint, lingering smile even now.

"It's common. Honestly, it's better than it used to be — back in the day, if a contract fell through, they'd call you a commie. Isn't that ridiculous? A mere baseball player asks to renegotiate his contract, and the chairmen of these massive corporations foam at the mouth and trash him in the media as some red."

His composure stemmed partly from his temperament, but also no doubt from his long, winding career — a lifetime benchwarmer who clawed his way up from the very bottom of the scouting team before circling through the PR department.

Devoted players getting treated like garbage and booted out? Veterans pushed down to the minors in their twilight years, retiring under a hail of abuse? He'd seen his share. Not with the Twins, perhaps, but he'd witnessed it plenty at other clubs.

By that standard, Sa Moon-jik's situation was actually manageable. He was still young and capable enough to be cast off, and at its heart, this was a story of money, not betrayal of talent.

"Is that so? Ha... If I'd known it would come to this, I would have paced myself."

"A player devoting himself to his team and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his fans isn't a sin."

Sa Moon-jik knew the broad strokes of that history too. He was a ballplayer himself, with a decent professional career behind him — how could he not have heard the rumors and the stories? He just never imagined he'd become one of those stories.

Because, as the scout across the table said, devotion wasn't a sin. If asked whether the Tigers had any player more valuable than him, a name or two did come to mind. But if asked who had devoted himself the most, he was confident he'd rank first.

And yet the reward for all that devotion had come back to him as betrayal and an ultimatum. Now he had no choice but to choose.

"To be honest with you, I talked things over with my wife for a long while before coming here today. About whether I should actually switch teams."

It was a sudden confession, but Park Young-chul simply signaled that he was listening and let the man talk.

"Of course, before that, I spoke with our team's general manager first. Whether there was any room to improve the terms, or — at the very least — whether the club could step in to squash the rumors."

Park Young-chul found it almost admirable that Sa Moon-jik still said our team even in a situation like this — until the man's next words turned that admiration upside down.

"And he told me: these contract terms are the best he can offer, and if the team is to address the rumors at the organizational level, I first need to become a confirmed Tigers player through signing."

It wasn't common, but such things did happen now and then in the baseball world, so he'd expected something like it to a degree. He just hadn't expected it to actually be true. Park Young-chul suppressed a burst of incredulous laughter and spoke.

"So what did you and your wife decide?"

"I'll move. Might as well make some money out of it, since this is how things turned out, no?"

The answer he'd been waiting for, at last. Sa Moon-jik hadn't said a word about the detailed terms, but his stubborn resistance had been the single biggest obstacle in these negotiations, so this answer was as good as a done deal.

But Park Young-chul showed no joy at all. Instead, he fired back.

"If it's money you want, then I have to advise against this deal."

"I'm sorry?"

Sa Moon-jik looked him in the eye, half in protest. Just as he'd suspected. The light was dead in those eyes.

It was hard for a player betrayed by the team he'd poured his entire professional career into to come out with his spirit and motivation intact. And money, of all things — of everything he'd seen and heard about the man called Sa Moon-jik, nothing suited him less.

"We're no fools. What reason could we possibly have to hold the first offer for a player who's already been discarded? We'll need to run the numbers again."

"Are you serious?"

Obviously, this was a breach of business ethics. Voiding the previous proposal and suddenly changing the terms? It hadn't been a formal offer, sure, but still — where was the sense in that?

What Sa Moon-jik didn't know was that Park Young-chul had no such authority. Truthfully, he barely understood contracts at all. To any observer, this would look like sheer, raving overreach.

But as a man who loved baseball, Park Young-chul believed that this — and only this — was the way to give Sa Moon-jik a reason to play baseball again, and the only way to keep a big-name free agent from turning into a salary thief.

"We'll lower the guaranteed amount slightly, but in exchange, we'll structure in performance options based on how you perform against the Hamheung Tigers next season. I'll do everything I can to push the total value higher."

It went without saying that he had no authority to propose contract terms either. He simply believed this was the best path.

"What would that even mean? You want me to take revenge on the Tigers?"

The Sa Moon-jik who'd slumped there like a dead man moments ago was nowhere to be found. Already he was boiling over with fury.

Exactly the reaction he wanted. Park Young-chul swept away the easygoing, folksy air he'd maintained until now and played his final card.

"That's not a bad thing either. Watching the bastards who threw you away eat and live well — honestly, doesn't that turn your stomach? Beat them down properly, and you'd feel a little better, wouldn't you? Though you don't have to think that way at all."

"Then what exactly is your intention here?"

"The club threw you away. But the fans haven't."

Park Young-chul locked eyes with Sa Moon-jik — whose gaze was shifting from rage to bewilderment — with unshakable intensity, and kept laying out his cards.

"The Hamheung Tigers organization betrayed you in the cruelest way possible. And now the fans are throwing stones at you. But that's because they've been fed false information, isn't it? If you fold now, the fans will take it as confirmation. They'll say, 'Figures. That washed-up gold-digger saw the club as a sucker all along. Serves them right.'"

Park Young-chul knew the seniors who'd left like this all too well. Some were genuinely ugly creatures who'd wrung out every last won; others were innocents caught in club politics. But the fans' verdict was always the same.

"How do you turn it around? Explaining this whole mess later won't help. Public opinion might shift for a moment, but in the end, baseball proves itself through results. So there's only one thing for you to do, Sa Moon-jik. Play incredible baseball — and play even more incredibly where the Tigers fans can see it."

He would make the words pour from every fan's mouth: Why did we ever run off Sa Moon-jik? Fix the internal FA mess first, damn it.

Sa Moon-jik froze at this entirely unexpected proposal, and it took him a long while to find his voice again.

"... Then would the Twins truly be a good environment for me to play my best baseball?"

"Of course. There's no better environment in the entire KBO."

What team could be better for a hitter to shine than one that fielded the KBO's two most dominant starters in its rotation, and whose lineup got praised as having done its job by scoring a single run?

Park Young-chul believed it with his whole heart, and he broke into a bright smile.

"Hahahaha! Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

A barbecue joint in Wirye City. The stove league still had a long way to run, and it was too early to finalize anything, so the Sa ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Moon-jik contract hadn't been officially stamped yet — but for all practical purposes, it was as good as done.

With the most perilous part of this stove league's master plan cleared so painlessly, the general manager and the rest of the front office staff were in a state of outright dopamine explosion.

Park Young-chul, hailed as the hero of the negotiation, was happily in attendance too, seated at the head of the company dinner.

"Team Leader Park, how on earth did you do it? We were seriously considering groveling at the president's door, begging him to approve maybe two billion won more in budget."

"I didn't do anything. It's all thanks to the Tigers stepping on their own rake."

"Oh, come on. Would the player's side have moved that enthusiastically just because of that? It's all your doing, Team Leader. Now, let me pour you one."

"Haha, then how about one more toast? Come on, everyone, raise your glasses. To the Seoul Twins' championship!"

"To the championship!"

The staff grilled beef together, eating and drinking with abandon — all funded by the dinner budget they'd squeezed out of the president in exchange for not asking for more money. That's how enormous the Sa Moon-jik signing was.

The Seoul Twins' single greatest weakness, in the end, was the outfield. Setting aside Joo Byung-min, there wasn't a single player who was both good and a sure-fire first-team caliber option.

Considering the heavy defensive burden on center fielders, they needed at least four outfielders, two of whom had to be first-team grade and capable of covering center for the roster to even function — and right now, they effectively had no one.

But among the outfielders on the market this year, there wasn't a single national-team-caliber player. The closest approximations were Sa Moon-jik and Lee Byeong-yeon. Beyond those two, the only outfielder available was Jo Hyeong-jun — better than the Twins' current outfielders, sure, but hardly true free-agent material.

Even if they recruited a foreign outfielder, they'd need at least two for the outfield to run stably. So Plan A had been to somehow land both Sa Moon-jik and Lee Byeong-yeon, and Plan B to get one of them plus Jo Hyeong-jun. With the hardest piece — Sa Moon-jik — now secured, hope was finally in sight.

There was even hope that a genuine Twins dynasty might be possible. Some people were already giggling to themselves about how big the championship bonus would be if they actually won. It was nothing short of a festival.

Then, in the middle of everyone's happy dinner, the general manager's phone rang.

"Yes, this is Jung Gi-hyuk of the Seoul Twins. Yes. Yes. ...Yes?"

The atmosphere had been rowdy and joyful right up until that moment, but something ominous in the general manager's reaction made the staff fall silent one by one, all eyes turning to him.

The caller was Lee Byeong-yeon's agent. The negotiations hadn't been going as smoothly as with Sa Moon-jik, but they hadn't been going badly either — and the sudden statement from this negotiation partner froze the general manager solid.

"Wh... what's the reason?"

"All I'll tell you is that the Fighters have made a considerably better offer than the Twins. If you want to overturn this on money alone, you'll have to name ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a very large figure."

So the championship premium and franchise tradition really were insurmountable, were they?

Lee Byeong-yeon — the original number one target of the plan — was, for all intents and purposes, out. The joy of landing Sa Moon-jik deflated in an instant.

"I understand. We'll prepare a new proposal and send it over shortly."

That's what he said — but he could read the situation clearly enough. The agent was calling to give advance warning to a club he needed to maintain a good long-term relationship with. He had no intention of steering his client to the Twins.

Lee Byeong-yeon was one of the stove league's headline items, so he'd expected the drama to stay alive at least until the year-end awards ceremony. It had been decided far faster than anticipated.

Fine. Plan A was unrealistic anyway. Sweeping up every scarce outfielder on the market? Who could pull that off? A little disappointing, but using Jo Hyeong-jun as a gap stopper alongside the existing Twins outfielders wasn't a terrible call at all.

And at the exact moment he was thinking this and about to hang up—

For a moment, General Manager Jung Gi-hyuk couldn't process what he was hearing.

"I'm sorry?"

Jo Hyeong-jun was a player even his own club regarded as a gap stopper at best. With promising young players clearly on the rise this year, there had been a reluctance within the organization to re-sign him, and his own skill level wasn't starter-caliber anywhere he went — meaning the only team that made sense for him was the Twins.

So the club and the player had simply been sizing each other up, each holding the other's weakness, angling for the best possible deal — and if push came to shove, it was obvious the Twins would sign first.

But the agent's explanation blew right past the general manager's assumptions.

No way. And yet — there had been a way. A sign-and-trade. Of course there was.

Jung Gi-hyuk took a moment to collect his thoughts and focused.

... Let's recap, once more.

Though nothing had been finalized, the Seoul Twins had essentially reached an agreement with Sa Moon-jik. The contract would be official within days.

But there were only three outfielders on the current free-agent market — and of those, Plan A target Lee Byeong-yeon had agreed to terms with the Pyongyang Fighters, while Jo Hyeong-jun had gone to the Kaesong Royals via sign-and-trade.

The Twins, who needed at least two outfielders, now had one — a perfectly serviceable one, admittedly, in Sa Moon-jik — but from here on out, there would be no more outfielders to be had through free agency. Period.

"Everyone, listen up..."

Having hung up, Jung Gi-hyuk spoke quietly to the staff, who were already watching him with mounting unease.

"As of tonight, we're back on emergency footing. International operations, focus even harder on foreign outfielders. Desk, go back down to the field staff and re-confirm the need for free-agent reinforcements. Everyone else — trades, free agents, independent leagues, I don't care where — build me a list of every outfielder we can possibly acquire. Move, and move fast."

Of course, quiet as his voice was, there was nothing quiet about the content.

In that instant, the staff members who'd been grilling meat and pouring drinks had to clear their seats in perfect unison and sprint back to the office.

General Manager Jung Gi-hyuk settled the bill with a heavy, complicated heart, then tilted his head back toward the ceiling.

"And here I thought things were finally going well..."

"And here I thought things were finally going well..."

Kim Yi-seon was finally settling into the new house, and the results of Min-ah's mock CSAT were in — she'd missed exactly one question off a perfect score — so life had settled into a remarkably peaceful rhythm.

He bounced between home and the stadium doing a bit of training, and beyond that, watched manga, sprawled out sleeping, and basked in happiness — debating home decor with his girlfriends and gleefully working his seniors and juniors to the bone. He'd been thinking that, after so long, true peace had finally arrived.

But then again, maybe that's exactly why you never raise a flag. Something happened that Kim Yi-seon simply could not comprehend.

I took the call from my mother-in-law and froze solid on the spot.

So what she was saying was: I might not win MVP. I might not even win Rookie of the Year.

Seriously? This isn't some hidden camera prank?