The Seattle Mariners finally moved forward on long-rumored plans to sign Korean slugger Dae-ho Lee on Wednesday after the 33-year-old passed a physical with the club Tuesday.
Lee agreed to a minor-league contract with an invitation to spring training with the Mariners in Peoria, Ariz. He isn’t guaranteed a job with the big-league club and will have to compete with Gaby Sanchez and Jesus Montero to back up Adam Lind at first base and serve as a right-handed hitter off the bench or the designated hitter when Nelson Cruz isn’t in that role.
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South Korea’s designated hitter Lee Dae-ho played in the 2015 Premier12 world baseball tournament at Tokyo.
Here are five things to know about the newest Mariner:
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1. He’s a big guy Lee is 6-foot-4 and has weighed close to 290 pounds in the past, but he has been working out in the U.S. recently in an effort to drop some weight,according to several reports. We probably won’t know exactly where he’s at weight-wise until he arrives at spring training, but suffice to say he can do some damage to the baseball when he gets the barrel of the bat on the ball. His nickname is ‘Big Boy.’
2. Power stroke Speaking of that power, Lee has hit 323 career home runs, according to Baseball-reference.com, in the Korean Baseball Organization and Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, where he played the past four seasons with two different clubs. He put together a .282/.368/.524 slash line last season with a .892 OPS, 31 home runs and 30 doubles.
3. He has a limited window Lee will turn 34 in June and might only have a few good years left in him if he can even earn a spot on the big league club and stay there long-term. But this isn’t much of a risk for Seattle and it comes with the potential for huge payoff. Imagine if Lee proves to be just as effective hitting in the major leagues as he has to this point in his career in both Japan and Korea.
4. Stikeouts on the rise He has never been a guy who strikes out a lot, but, no big surprise here, Lee is striking out a bit more often as he gets older. He struck out 97 times in 2014 in 566 at-bats. He set a new career-high in strikeouts in 2015 with 109 in 510 at-bats. There are certainly players who strikeout more often than Lee and don’t provide some of the other numbers he does, but it’s fair to wonder where he will go from here facing major-league pitching.
5. He shouldn’t be overwhelmed This is a former MVP of the KBO. He is used to playing with expectations. He won three batting titles in the Korean league and also was the home run champ twice. In 2010, he set a world record by hitting a home run in nine consecutive games.
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