The Hot Stove is a K Drama about the offseason of the fictional Dreams baseball team, the worst team in the league. Baek Seong-Soo, a sport executive who never played baseball, is brought in as the team's general manager after another failed season. However, Kwong Kyeong-min (Oh Jung-se`), the team's president brought Baek in with the purpose of shutting down the Dreams because it is unprofitable for the Jaesong group.

The story: One of the nice things about the show is it explains some of the jargon associated with baseball which helps non-baseball fans understand what's going on. What I found far-fetched was that the star player Lim Dong-gyu hired thugs to beat up Baek and also vandalised his car when Lim heard he was being traded. I realise you need dramatic licence in shows, but this made no sense. Baek's family subplot was a bit disjointed and appeared to have been thrown in for dramatic sake. It is not clear until we learn of his baby's death that the woman was his wife. there is not explanation about why Baek's wife left him. Was it because of the death of their child? Was it because he was a workaholic? That isn't clear. It's unclear how his brother became paralysed from sliding into third base. At times it appeared that there were too many characters and the writers would lose sight of some and then bring them back randomly. Two glaring examples were Gil Chang Joo/Robert Gil and Go Se-hyeok the chief scout who got fired. Chang's character was central in the middle episodes but got relegated without much explanation. After Go tried to get his revenge, he was written out without fanfare considering he was a significant enough antagonist in the storyline.

Overall: As a baseball fan, I enjoyed the show. It was interesting to see how the team used traditional recruitment methods with more modern sabremetic methods. Namkoong Min continues to excel as an actor. The way in which he plays Baek was very nuanced and deliberate.