The Giants introduced who they think can be an important player in the coming years.
San Francisco signed Korean outfielder Jung Hoo Lee to a six-year, $113 million contract and the 25-year-old donned the orange and black for the first time at his opening press conference Friday at Oracle Park.
Lee is a former KBO MVP and won five consecutive Golden Glove Awards with the Kiwoom Heroes before signing with the Giants. Farhan Zaidi, president of baseball operations, said during the press conference that the current plan is for Lee to be the everyday center fielder in 2024 and that he will start in center field on Opening Day.
The Giants have tried to get younger and more athletic on defense, and while Lee undoubtedly checks that box, there are questions about his bat and how it will translate from the KBO to the major leagues.
Lee has elite bat-to-ball skills and has been a career .340 hitter in the KBO with a strikeout rate of around 5 to 6 percent in recent seasons. While there may be some initial velocity differential adjustment, Zaidi and the Giants believe Lee's rare contact ability translates to less impressive exit velocities.
“Yeah, I think it's an increasingly rare skill and (the question) about exit speed was interesting because that seems to be a goal for so many players here and there's definitely less discussion about it in Korea and Japan,” Zaidi said. “So I think from a player development perspective it doesn’t matter so much when guys develop their skills and their games.
“It’s interesting from a baseball perspective, we have really sophisticated metrics for hitting. I actually remember a conversation I had with Dave Roberts when I was still in LA. He just said there's something about a player who has the ability to find the outfielder's grass and I think that's true. I actually think he was talking about Ichiro [Suzuki] when we had this conversation. You can see that (Lee) modeled his game after him and he has a lot of the same skills.”
The FanGraphs and Steamer models project Lee to hit .291/.353/.430 with 9-for-10 home runs, 55-for-60 RBI and six stolen bases with a very will achieve an impressive strikeout rate of 9.3 percent.
In his MVP-winning 2022 season, Lee hit .349/.421/.575 with 23 home runs, 113 RBI and an OPS of .996. While these numbers are certainly impressive at first glance, Zaidi was most impressed with Lee's strikeout totals. The young star struck out just 32 times in 627 plate appearances.
“Forget walks to strikeouts, it’s really impressive that your homer and strikeout numbers are close to each other in every league,” Zaidi explained.
The addition of Lee in center allows the Giants to move Mike Yastrzemski to right field while veterans Michael Conforto and Mitch Haniger split time in left field and designated hitter.
It remains to be seen whether the Giants will make any more moves in the outfield this offseason, but for now, this is likely to be the primary starting lineup in 2024, with Luis Matos, Austin Slater and Tyler Fitzgerald coming off the bench.
The Giants are excited to sign Lee, who is a multi-tasker on the field and on defense and could quickly become a fan favorite with his unique skill set.
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast