After mashing dingers into the seats across South Korea and Japan for over a decade, slugger Lee Dae-ho will now try to win a major league job in the United States.
The Seattle Mariners announced Wednesday (local time) they’ve signed the 33-year-old first baseman/designated hitter to a one-year minor league contract, which includes an invitation to the big league camp later this month.
Financial terms were not disclosed, either by the Mariners or by Lee’s Seoul-based agency, Montis Sports Management Group. A South Korean report earlier claimed that Lee’s incentive-laden deal could be as much as $4 million.
Position players for the Mariners are to report to spring training by Feb. 24, and the first full workout is scheduled for the following day.
Lee, who bats and throws right-handed, becomes the fourth South Korean to sign with a big league club this offseason, after first baseman Park Byung-ho, outfielder Kim Hyun-soo and right-hander Oh Seung-hwan. Lee, who is scheduled to return to South Korea Friday, is the only one of the four to reach a minor league deal.
They’re joined by three incumbent big leaguers: left-hander Ryu Hyun-jin of the Los Angeles Dodgers, infielder Kang Jung-ho of the Pittsburgh Pirates and outfielder Choo Shin-soo of the Texas Rangers. Lee and Choo played on the same elementary school team in the southern port city of Busan. The two American League West clubs will meet each other 19 times during the regular season.
Listed at 194 centimeters and 130 kilograms, Lee is a former Korea Baseball Organization regular season MVP who played his last four seasons in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He enjoyed his most productive NPB season in 2015 with the Central League’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, with 31 home runs and 98 RBIs, both career-highs, in 141 games.
He was later voted the MVP of the Japan Series, as the Hawks knocked out the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in five games for their second straight NPB championship. He was the first South Korean to be so honored.
Lee will try to become the fifth South Korean to go through the KBO and the NPB before reaching the majors, and the first position player to do so.
Through Montis, Lee thanked his fans and also the Hawks for allowing him to pursue his big league dreams.
“Above all, I am pleased to have the opportunity to reach Major League Baseball, which is the ultimate stage,” he said. “I will try to make the big league club with a good camp. I should be able to realize that goal, and I’m grateful for the Mariners ball club for giving me this chance.”
Lee will have to work his way into the Mariners lineup that already has veteran first baseman Adam Lind, acquired in December from the Milwaukee Brewers with five 20-homer seasons to his credit, and hard-hitting DH Nelson Cruz, who finished second in the AL with 44 home runs last year.
The Mariners’ general manager, Jerry Dipoto, said Lee should provide some flexibility.
“Dae-ho gives us another potential right-handed power bat in the first-base competition,” Dipoto was quoted as saying on MLB.com. “He has performed at a very high level of production in both Korea and Japan, and we are excited to see how that translates to our team.”
Once a svelte high school pitcher, Lee developed into a massive slugger who won three KBO batting titles and led the league in home runs twice.
He made his KBO debut in 2001 but enjoyed his first 20-homer season in 2004. He went on to hit at least 21 in six of the next seven seasons, including a career-best 44 in 2010. During that season, Lee homered in a record nine consecutive games.
Lee won the batting Triple Crown — league leader in batting average, home runs and RBIs — in 2006 and in 2010.
Lee signed with the NPB’s Orix Buffaloes after the 2011 season, and hit 48 homers with 182 RBIs in two years before moving on to the Hawks. Lee had 50 homers and 166 RBIs in two seasons with his second Japanese club.
Lee chose not to return to the Hawks for his third season so he could chase his big league dreams. The Hawks held out hopes that the big man would return for 2016, as Lee remained unsigned into February.
Lee will be joining a Mariners club that finished fourth among five clubs in the AL West last season at 76-86, while scoring 656 runs to rank 13th among 15 AL clubs. They had the AL’s third-worst batting average with .249 but did hit 198 home runs to rank fifth in the league, despite playing their home games at a pitcher-friendly Safeco Field. (Yonhap)
