SAN FRANCISCO — It had been so long since the Giants had hosted one of these that Farhan Zaidi found himself wondering Friday morning the last time he wore a tie.
Devoid of postseason baseball for all but five games in 2021, absent any marquee acquisitions to parade in front of fans and media, the Giants’ top baseball executive has had no reason to dress up. Likewise, the absence of a proper interview room has largely gone unnoticed.
But, officially introducing $113 million man Jung Hoo Lee, that changed Friday.
“It’s been a while,” Zaidi said off to the side of the makeshift stage erected in the home clubhouse, where two or three dozen onlookers, including a cohort of Korean press, piled in. “I think my level of discomfort is an indication of how long it’s been. But it’s fun. It’s an exciting day.”
Going with an orange, silk number, Zaidi was happy to be upstaged by the 25-year-old one seat to his left in a shimmering black suit and a K-pop haircut.
The Giants are taking a risk, awarding the franchise’s largest free agent contract since Barry Zito to a player who hasn’t taken a major-league at-bat. It is Lee’s lauded bat-to-ball skills that made him a countrywide star for the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korean Baseball Organization, while his speed and athleticism give the Giants belief that he’ll be roaming Oracle Park’s center field for the duration of his six-year contract.
But the charming personality on display, despite a language barrier thousands of miles from home, left the Giants even more confident in their bet.
Smiling ear-to-ear, Lee introduced himself with an opening statement in English, raising his voice at the end to declare, “Let’s! Go! Giants!”
“Hello, Giants fans, I am Jung Hoo Lee, Grandson of the Wind, from Korea,” he began, referencing his nickname, a play on his dad, Jong-Beom, whose speed during an 18-year professional career in Korea and Japan earned him the original moniker, “Son of the Wind.”
Adorning his Giants cap for the first time, Lee bent over the microphone, flashed another smile and asked, “Handsome?”
His family seated in the first row laughed when Lee quipped in Korean in response to his famous father’s influence that “I learned nothing from my dad in baseball,” later joking that the 51-year-old could still beat him in a foot race.
Despite only playing once in Fresno, Lee said he loved the Bay Area, admired the Giants from their three World Series championships last decade, and enjoys watching YouTube videos and eating his mom’s cooking in his free time.
Lee conducted the question-answer portion using an interpreter, Tad Yo, but still allowed his personality to shine through, impressing Zaidi, who only met him for the first time in person Friday morning and signed him off the trust of his scouts and Lee’s game tape.
“The charisma and energy, not that we hadn’t heard about that, but that’s my first experience with it firsthand,” Zaidi said. “It kind of gives you even more confidence. … I think for us it’s a great baseball fit. But for us, we’ve talked about being mindful about creating an exciting energy around the organization, and you could definitely feel that today.”
The six-year, $113 million contract doubled most projections of what Lee would receive on the open market. On top of that, the Giants must send a posting fee of more than $18 million to Lee’s KBO club, bringing the total investment close to $132 million.
The price reflects not only Lee’s market, which his agent, Scott Boras, said was extensive but the Giants’ confidence in his ability to make the transition from the KBO to the major leagues, a move considered more challenging than the one from Japan. He will be division rivals with the only position player to ever come up through Korea and stick as a major-league regular, Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim, a close friend and former teammate whom Lee said advised him throughout the process.
Paired with manager Bob Melvin, who oversaw Kim’s breakout in San Diego, Lee is confident success will come quickly.
“I’m a little embarrassed to say this,” Lee said, “but from Opening Day on, the fans will be impressed with (my) skill set.”
On the back of his jersey, beneath a nameplate that reads “J H Lee,” is No. 51, which Lee said is an ode to Ichiro Suzuki. Standing a slim 6 feet tall, Lee modeled his game after the former Mariners superstar, who came up in a conversation between Zaidi and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts while they were both still in Los Angeles.
“He said there’s just something about a player who has the ability to find the outfield grass. I think that’s true,” Zaidi said. “I actually think he might’ve been talking about Ichiro when we had that conversation. You can see he’s patterned his game off of him and has a lot of the same skills.”
While Lee racked up accolades in Korea, including Rookie of the Year in 2017 and MVP in 2022, he showed he can handle higher-level pitching playing internationally. In the World Baseball Classic, he faced Yu Darvish and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, going 6-for-14 with two doubles in four games.
“What we’ve seen from him in international play is almost as meaningful as what we saw from all his time in Korea,” Zaidi said.
In seven KBO seasons, Lee drew 383 walks while striking out only 304 times, the kind of plate discipline and pitch recognition the Giants value.
But the number that Zaidi said stood out most to him came in his MVP season, when he slugged a career-best 23 home runs while striking out only 32 times.
“Forget about walk to strikeout, to have your homer and strikeout numbers that close in any league is really impressive,” Zaidi said. “I think for our scouts, not just the numbers we looked at, his pitch recognition is really good. When he takes a pitch, he recognizes it really early. That’s why we have a lot of confidence that skillset can really translate.”
For those reasons, Lee had been on the Giants’ radar long before he was posted this winter.
The team sent multiple scouts to watch him in Korea, culminating with general manager Pete Putila making the intercontinental trek for his farewell game. Returning from surgery on his left ankle in July, Lee took only one at-bat. But he noticed the gesture.
“Unbelievable,” Lee said of Putila’s visit. “I didn’t even think of him coming, and for him to come was an honor. Very, very honored that somebody of Pete’s caliber and position would come watch him play.”
The Giants’ interest only heated up as their season progressed and a specific set of flaws became apparent. They needed a table-setter at the top of their lineup, a defensive force up the middle of the diamond, and a draw for fans to visit the ballpark.
“I said a lot of those things specifically with (Lee) in mind even if we couldn’t talk about him,” Zaidi said. “It’s one thing when you have an appreciation for the skill set, which we’ve had for a few years. It probably takes the motivation to another level when you see how good of an immediate fit it is.”