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Lee Jung-hoo

NL West Notes: Betts, Marte, Stripling, Lee

By Mark Polishuk | September 10, 2023 at 8:33am CDT

Mookie Betts hasn’t played since suffering a bone bruise on his left foot on Thursday, though the superstar could be back in action as early as Monday when the Dodgers open a series against the Padres.  In the wake of the initial injury, the Dodgers put Betts through a battery of tests to ensure that his foot hadn’t incurred more serious damage, and Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register writes that Betts was walking normally around the L.A. clubhouse yesterday.

The club is naturally being as cautious as possible with the MVP candidate, as it is hard to imagine Los Angeles making a serious postseason run without Betts wreaking havoc in the lineup.  The league leader in fWAR (7.9), Betts is hitting .314/.411/.609 with 38 homers over 610 plate appearances, and his ability to play second base and shortstop has been crucial for a Dodgers team that has been beset by middle-infield injuries since Spring Training.  Fortunately, it looks like Betts will be able to resume his dream season in short order, with an eye towards then helping the Dodgers capture another World Series championship. [UPDATE: Betts is in the Dodgers’ lineup today, leading off and playing second base.]

More from around the NL West…

  • The Diamondbacks had a pair of injury scares in yesterday’s 3-2 win over the Cubs, as Ketel Marte fouled a ball off his right knee and Jordan Lawlar was hit in the right hand with a pitch.  Marte’s knock occurred in the first inning and he remained in the game until the seventh, with postgame x-rays coming back negative.  Manager Torey Lovullo told reporters (including Theo Mackie of the Arizona Republic) that Marte might not miss any time as long as his knee didn’t have continued soreness overnight.  Lawlar’s HBP occurred in the 10th inning, so an update on his status won’t come until Lovullo meets with the media today.
  • A mid-back strain has kept Ross Stripling from any MLB action since August 16, but the Giants right-hander told Evan Webeck of the Bay Area News Group that he is healthy and ready to return from the injured list.  However, Stripling feels “in limbo” and like he’s on the “phantom IL” due to a roster crunch, according to his conversations with president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Gabe Kapler.  “It’s bad luck of the timing that I’m healthy and Farhan likes the roster that he has.  And I’m just sitting here healthy with nowhere to go,” Stripling said.  Juggling a number of arms on the pitching staff, San Francisco has used an opener-heavy strategy for the last couple of months, perhaps leaving Stripling without a clear role with everyone healthy.  Kapler said the Giants “actually have a pretty good plan in place to have [Stripling] back on the roster sooner rather than later,” but didn’t give any specifics about a timeline.  It could be that the team simply prefers its other pitching options, as Stripling has a 5.29 ERA over 78 1/3 innings while battling back problems for much of the season.
  • The Padres are “viewed as a strong candidate to sign” Jung Hoo Lee this winter, The Athletic’s Dennis Lin writes.  Lee has been posting excellent numbers over seven seasons in the KBO League, and only just turned 25 years old last month.  The outfielder’s 2023 season was prematurely ended due to ankle surgery, but Lee is still expected to be posted to MLB teams by the Kiwoom Heroes, his KBO club.  The Padres have traditionally been aggressive on the international market, and they might have an extra recruiting advantage since Ha-Seong Kim is a close friend of Lee’s and a former teammate with the Heroes.
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Arizona Diamondbacks Los Angeles Dodgers Notes San Diego Padres San Francisco Giants Jordan Lawlar Jung Hoo Lee Ketel Marte Lee Jung-hoo Mookie Betts Ross Stripling

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Latest On Jung Hoo Lee

By Darragh McDonald | August 10, 2023 at 10:15pm CDT

KBO star Jung Hoo Lee has been one of the more intriguing potential free agents of the upcoming offseason ever since reports back in January indicated that he would be posted by his KBO club, the Kiwoom Heroes. A wrench was thrown in that plan when he recently required ankle surgery, though Jon Morosi of MLB.com reports today that Lee is still expected to sign with a major league club this winter.

Lee, 24, already has an impressive résumé in his short career. He won Rookie of the Year in the KBO in 2017 by hitting .324/.395/.417 when he was just 18 years old for most of the season. He continued to take steps forward in the years to come, especially in 2022. He launched 23 home runs and finished with a batting line of .349/.421/.575 for a wRC+ of 175. He struck out in 5.1% of his plate appearances while walking in 10.5% of them. He stole five bases and won a fifth straight Gold Glove, with all of those attributes leading to a Most Valuable Player award.

This year won’t be the perfect platform season for him, as he’s been a notch below that MVP form. His walk rate went up to 12.7% but he hit just six home runs, leading to a .319/.407/.456 batting line. His 142 wRC+ indicates he’s still been well above league average but not quite as outrageously as he was last year. To top things off, he’s now missing the final months of the season due to his aforementioned ankle surgery.

Perhaps he or the Heroes would have given some second thought to his posting, maybe delaying it by a year, though it seems the plan has yet to be altered. Morosi relays that neither party has given any indication that the path forward has changed.

Lee will turns 25 years old later this month and will no longer be considered an “amateur” by MLB rules and won’t be subject to the bonus pool system. He will therefore be free to sign a contract of any length or dollar amount, with the signing club also responsible for paying a posting fee to the Heroes. That’s tied to the size of the contract itself, with the MLB team owing the KBO club 20 percent of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5 percent of the next $25MM and 15 percent of any dollars thereafter. That fee is on top of any dollars guaranteed to the player himself, and subsequent earning (e.g. performance incentives, contract options) are also subject to the posting system once they become guaranteed to the player.

This winter’s free agent class is headlined by starting pitchers, with very few impact bats expected to be available. Assuming Lee’s ankle heals up in the months to come and he is posted as expected, he figures to still draw plenty of interest.

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Korea Baseball Organization Jung Hoo Lee Lee Jung-hoo

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Lee Jung-hoo To Require Season-Ending Ankle Surgery

By Darragh McDonald | July 24, 2023 at 1:40pm CDT

Outfielder Lee Jung-hoo of the Kiwoom Heroes in the KBO League will miss the next three months due to an ankle injury that requires surgery, reports Jeeho Yoo of Yonhap News Agency. There’s less than two months remaining in the KBO regular season schedule, meaning this will effectively end his season.

Lee, 24, has already established himself as one of the better players in the KBO League despite his young age. He won Rookie of the Year in 2017 after hitting .324/.395/.417 when he was just 18 years old for much of the year. He continued to improve his game in subsequent seasons, including last year. He hit 23 home runs and produced a batting line of .349/.421/.575 for a wRC+ of 175. He struck out in just 5.1% of his plate appearances while walking in 10.5% of them. He also stole five bases and won a Gold Glove for a fifth straight year, with his combined efforts leading to a Most Valuable Player award.

He was surely hoping for another strong season here in 2023, since the Heroes announced in January that he will be posted for major league clubs afterwards, allowing him to attempt to make the move to North America at the age of 25. But it’s not going to end up playing out in ideal fashion for Lee. In 85 games this year, he still played well, but at a level below his MVP campaign last year. His walk rate ticked up to 12.7% but he hit just six home runs, leading to a .319/.407/.456 batting line. His 142 wRC+ indicates he’s still been way above average but not quite as outrageously as last year.

On top of that relatively diminished output, he’ll now have to miss the final few months of the season and will likely go into the winter with uncertainty surrounding his health status. It’s obviously an ill-timed development for Lee, who was surely hoping to earn a significant contract in making the jump to Major League Baseball. Since he turns 25 in August, he will no longer be considered an “amateur” by MLB rules and won’t be subject to the bonus pool system.

He will therefore be free to sign a contract of any length or dollar amount, with the signing club also responsible for paying a posting fee to the Heroes. That’s tied to the size of the contract itself, with the MLB team owing the KBO club 20 percent of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5 percent of the next $25MM and 15 percent of any dollars thereafter. That fee is on top of any dollars guaranteed to the player himself, and subsequent earning (e.g. performance incentives, contract options) are also subject to the posting system once they become guaranteed to the player.

Lee seemed to be set up to be one of the more intriguing free agents this winter, especially since the class seems heavy on pitchers and light on position players. That might still be the case, though it’s possible that this injury situation has an impact on things, depending on how he progresses between now and the winter.

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Korea Baseball Organization Lee Jung-hoo

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KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes To Post Lee Jung-hoo After 2023 Season

By Darragh McDonald | January 2, 2023 at 8:32am CDT

The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization announced that they will post outfielder and reigning league MVP Lee Jung-hoo after the upcoming season, per Yoo Jee-ho of the Yonhap News Agency.

“After some internal discussions, we agreed to respect the player’s intent to play in Major League Baseball,” the team said in a statement. “We will provide whatever support necessary for the player.” Lee also provided a quote in the statement. “The team has been giving me so much support since I was a rookie, and I was able to start dreaming about playing overseas because the team has helped me grow as a player,” he said. “First and foremost, I will concentrate on the upcoming season. I will put aside personal ambitions and try to help the team win the Korean Series.”

Lee is only 24 years old but already has already played six seasons in the KBO, bursting onto the scene in 2017 when he was only 18 years old. He played 144 games that season and only hit a couple of home runs but showed a great ability at the plate otherwise. He walked in 9.6 percent of his plate appearances while striking out in just 10.8 percent of them and produced a batting line of .324/.395/.417. That production was 12 percent better than league average, as evidenced by his 112 wRC+.

He was given Rookie of the Year honors for that performance and has only continued to get better at the plate in subsequent seasons. His excellent plate discipline has only improved as he’s settled into the league, resulting in a 10.5 percent walk rate and tiny 5.1 percent strikeout rate in 2022. That was the fourth straight season in which he walked more than he struck out. His power has also ticked up over time, with Lee launching 23 home runs in the most recent season. He finished with a batting line of .349/.421/.575 for a wRC+ of 175, indicating he was 75 percent better than league average. He was awarded Most Valuable Player for that excellent work. It’s not just at the plate where Lee shines either. He has stolen 63 bases over his six seasons in the KBO and has won Golden Glove awards for his outfield work in each of the past five campaigns.

After the upcoming campaign, Lee will have the seven seasons of experience necessary for KBO players to be posted. He will also turn 25 in August, a significant milestone for his move to MLB. International players under 25 years of age and/or with fewer than six years of professional experience are considered “amateurs” rather than professionals under MLB’s international free agency rules and are thus subject to the “bonus pool” system, where each team has an MLB-mandated cap on how much it can spend on signing bonuses.

International “amateurs” can only agree to minor league deals and signing bonuses, whereas “professionals” like former NPB players Seiya Suzuki, Masataka Yoshida and Kodai Senga (i.e. players 25 and older with six-plus years of pro experience) are free to sign Major League contracts for any length and dollar amount; for example, Shohei Ohtani came over to the Angels prior to his age-23 season, settling for a $2.3MM signing bonus and was unable to reach free agency until after 2023. Had he waited two more years, he could have immediately signed a nine-figure contract.

Lee will thus be able to sign a contract of any length or dollar amount once he reaches the open market. FanGraphs gives him a 50 grade on the 20-80 scouting scale, giving high praise for his work at the plate. They have a little bit of concern about his ground ball rate being near 60 percent and that he has struggled a bit against high velocity, but they still believe him to be a very exciting player.

If Lee does sign with a major league team next year, the club would owe a fee to the Heroes under the MLB – KBO posting agreement. That’s tied to the size of the contract itself, with the MLB team owing the KBO club 20 percent of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5 percent of the next $25MM and 15 percent of any dollars thereafter. That fee is on top of any dollars guaranteed to the player himself, and subsequent earning (e.g. performance incentives, contract options) are also subject to the posting system once they become guaranteed to the player.

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Korea Baseball Organization Lee Jung-hoo

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