With the Winter Meetings now underway, the MLB rumors will be kicked up a notch. While it was known at the end of November that the New York Yankees and San Franciso Giants were interested in Korean outfielder Jung-hoo Lee, you can now add the San Diego Padres to that list. The news comes as the Padres appear to be trying to unload another outfielder.
The rumor was confirmed in a social media post by Jon Heyman Sunday.
The 25-year-old Lee, a native of Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, will be posted by his KBO team, the Nexen Heroes, as early as tomorrow.
The center fielder was the 2017 KBO Rookie of the Year. In 2022, he was awarded the KBO Most Valuable Player Award. Lee has also won five consecutive KBO League Golden Glove Awards for his defensive prowess.
MLB scouts often consider the KBO similar to High-A ball in the United States.
According to Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors, “Evaluators praise his pure contact skills and strike zone awareness, although there could be some division among teams about whether he projects as an MLB center fielder. Lee's fringe power would be more alarming if a club feels he's a better defensive fit in the corner outfield.”
Lee's 2023 season was cut short due to injury.
If Lee is indeed posted on Monday, as many have been led to believe, MLB teams will have until January 3 to sign the outfielder.
Several Japanese-born outfielders have had success in Major League Baseball. They include, most prominently, Ichiro Suzuki and others like Hideki Matsui, Kosuke Fukudome, So Taguchi, and more recently, Masataka Yoshida and Shogo Akiyama.
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