00:00Jung-Hoo Lee of the San Francisco Giants, the team that everybody put to bed a couple of weeks ago
00:06saying that lineup is awful.
00:08Nobody can hit. Devers can't hit. Arise is hitting, but that's really it. Chapman can't hit and Thomas can't hit.
00:15Guess what? The Giants are looking a little bit friskier offensively. Number one, because Luis Arise is sustaining his success.
00:22Number two, because Devers is starting to hit doubles, which is nice. You just got to see him hit homers.
00:26But Jung-Hoo Lee, dude, if I am not mistaken, I think it's 40 hits in his last 22 games.
00:35He's hitting 435 in his last 22 and the clips right around 590 in his last 11 games.
00:42This guy is on a heater. I never want to see him come off of it.
00:46But Jung-Hoo Lee now has his batting average up to 333, which is one of the best marks in
00:50all of baseball.
00:51He's got 14 doubles. He has an 820 OPS.
00:54Yes, you love Jung-Hoo Lee when the Giants paid him coming over from the KBO.
00:59And like, I don't know if it was the hot stretches that you were looking for.
01:03I feel like you loved the floor of him.
01:05Yeah, this is a ridiculous heater that he's on right now.
01:08It was a combination of the just the elite bat to ball with more thump than you would expect for
01:13a guy with elite bats.
01:14But that didn't mean that he was going to hit 20 homers, but it was it meant that he's going
01:18to be able to split the gaps.
01:19It's not going to be the the wet noodle spray the ball. Hope it has eyes all the time type
01:23of situation.
01:23And I think what we're seeing with Lee's that's really shining through.
01:27Remember in 24 had that, you know, catastrophic shoulder injury and the season.
01:32And I think we've seen with a lot of guys here.
01:34It's it's the second season back from that where they kind of get back to who they are.
01:39And I do wonder if that's part of it.
01:41Also, it's just a matter of getting the reps right.
01:44He only reached. He only had 158 plate appearances for the injury in 24.
01:492025 was his first full season, while also still kind of getting back to feeling like himself again.
01:54This is a guy that just eclipsed a thousand plate appearances at the big league level.
01:59And of course, 27 years old, but made the jump from KBL, skip the minor leagues, go to the major
02:04leagues.
02:05It's a big leap. There's a lot to still get acclimated and adjust to.
02:08And I think when the Giants gave Jung-Hoo Lee this contract, I'd assume they were hoping you'd make an
02:12impact in year one and two.
02:13But I imagine that they knew that the best years of Jung-Hoo Lee were probably going to come in
02:17the middle of that contract.
02:18Just being that it's probably unrealistic to expect a guy to go from KBL in his mid-20s to Major
02:23League Baseball and immediately reach his potential.
02:26So I think that that is the funny part with the Giants is there's been a lot of or at
02:31least several exciting individual stories in what has been an extremely disappointing season.
02:36I think you look at Luis Arias looking like one of the best free agent signings by any team this
02:41year.
02:41You look at what Jung-Hoo Lee has done. Casey Schmidt is an all-star.
02:45Like that guy's got to be an all-star. He has broken out in every single way.
02:49And Lee looks like that player that you handed out, you know, nine figures to.
02:53So it's really exciting. I think he's here to stay too.
02:59Like I do really think that he's starting to figure it out and he's going to be a very good
03:03table setter for this team for a while.
03:04So the interesting thing about Jung-Hoo Lee so far this year is he is bottom 10 in Major League
03:09Baseball in terms of walk rate.
03:10He's walking 4% of the time right now.
03:13But he is one of the premier bat-to-ball guys in Major League Baseball.
03:16He's punching out 10% of the time.
03:17And even with a 4% walk rate, he's got a WRC plus at 133, which is a top 50
03:25-ish mark in Major League Baseball.
03:27So this heater, you would expect to push this guy offensively into like the top 15 or 20 in baseball.
03:33That's not really the case because you have to mitigate with a little bit more power and a little bit
03:37more walk.
03:38But at the end of the day, like this brand of baseball is coming back.
03:42I don't want to say it's in vogue because there's immense value here.
03:46I get to watch it every night with Xavier Edwards.
03:48We get to watch it all the time.
03:50You just mentioned Louisa Rice.
03:51But like Jacob Wilson was an all-star, and he was the starting shortstop in the AL last year, if
03:56I'm not mistaken, for the American League.
03:58So like this is back.
04:00This is valuable.
04:01And if Jung-Hoo Lee is at the top of that lineup, it's great.
04:04And you just made the circle.
04:05This game's cyclical, dude.
04:06It totally is.
04:07The bunt is back, too.
04:08Yeah.
04:09The bunt is – I was going to pitch that as a potential topic, but I wanted a little bit
04:12more research and info on it.
04:14Yeah.
04:14Ben Clemens wrote a great article on Fangraph.
04:16I want to talk about that a little bit later on in the week.
04:18Yeah.
04:19I definitely want to dive into that.
04:20But it's the whole point.
04:21There's no reason to be the eighth or ninth team to this new thing.
04:25You might as well go back to the old thing and find value in that.
04:29And that's the funny thing about baseball is everyone always gets so worried about we're going too far in this
04:32direction.
04:33I promise you too many will go in that direction.
04:35We'll circle right back to the old stuff again.
04:37The last thing on Jung-Hoo Lee is it's just pure hitting.
04:41And that's what made him so impressive in KBO.
04:43He had to make the adjustment to big league breaking balls and off-speed.
04:46He's hitting .313 against fastballs.
04:48He's hitting .319 against breaking balls.
04:50And he's hitting .391 against off-speed.
04:53How do you game plan for this guy right now?
04:55I don't really know.
04:56He hits everything.
04:58I don't think you do game plan.
05:00I think you just throw him your best stuff and you hope that he doesn't do damage against it.
05:04And usually the damage looks like doubles and not homers.
05:06And I guess opposing teams want to live with that.
05:09But Jung-Hoo Lee, again, has the batting average on the year up to .333, has the OPS up to
05:14.820.
05:14And Jung-Hoo Lee been one of the hottest hitters in Major League Baseball.
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