Seattle Sports Insider

M's with the "Big Grab"

Dr. D didn't know you could use a fungo bat as your "gamer"

Posted by

2/3/16

M's Git R Done, and give themselves another draw at the Bucky Jacobsen deck. :- ) Here is the mini-POTD that we put up last week. The Exec Sum of that post:

1) A picture's worth 1,000 kilograms ... er, words. Video linked.

2) He certainly clears his hands for the inside pitch. Carlton Fisk is my visual ... or Ichiro when he pre-set a launch for the RF seats.

3) Has a track record of "elevating his game" when faced with new and better pitching

Dr. D has always fancied the Jumbo Super Sized hitter who can whistle a line drive off the wall --- > using only a little arm swing. Ironically, strength can slow the game down for a behemoth like Lee. You realize that Bucky his ownself has a lifetime slugging percentage of .500 in the real majors, but his knees couldn't withstand the cheeseburgers. Dae-ho Lee seems to have much less trouble staying on the field.

.....

Personally I thought that M's fans asked the wrong question on Edgar Martinez. The question isn't whether a guy like that will be effective in that job; the question was How do you get a guy like that INTO the job. My reaction to the Dae-ho Lee signing is similar. I thought Lee was going to stay in Asia if he were not (justifiably) guaranteed a lot of playing time. So, on a logical basis, Dr. D definitely files this signing into the COUP category.

Megaprops again to Kevin Mather. This could be another $4M. But as with Hisashi Iwakuma, you are over budget when you come into a tremendous value opportunity, and KA-CHING! there's your sale. You gotta love it, right?

.....

It is interesting that Lee gets lots of doubles and walks to go with his homers. Last season he hit 31 dings but also 30 doubles; Adam Dunn in his prime would hit 40 homers but only 25 doubles; Dave Kingman one year hit 37 homers and only 9 doubles. LOL. Apparently Lee is NOT --- > a Kingman type who either (1) pulls a high fly over the left field fence or (2) wastes an at-bat for your ballclub. It's easy to draw a visual of Lee coming up, with Seager and Cano on 1st and 2nd, taking a compact swing, and zinging a line drive out to the wall.

So you and I are staring right down the barrel of "Dae-Ho Lind" serving as the successor to, um, Logan Morrison.

......

Here's another Lee video, a 3-pitch at-bat in the ninth inning. Lee takes two "half positions" on tease pitches, in Bruce Lee / Edgar Martinez style, and then smokes a long single. The vid slows down his motion from front and side. Note the compact followthrough that we discussed w/r/t Ketel Marte (good) and Leonys Martin (bad). The compact swing emphasizes quickness over throughspeed.

Isolated against LHP's, he'll have to do a lot to move toward $4M, which he might.

BABVA,

Dr D

Blog:

POTD

Tags:

Dae-ho Lee

Comments

Oh, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee take away the misery ...

He opted for his shot at the bigs, rather than slink back to Japan.

He has confidence his performance ... and the media coverage ... will bring him a multi year contract extension offer by this July.

The fact they got him on a MiLB contract means they have more time messing around to get something for Montero.

And I kinda think the reason Ishikawa sprurned the M's, after reportedly being willing to sign with the team, had something to do with Bob/Bubba/Mr. Lee's upcoming signing ... just too much of a timing coincidence.

Only one deal left to do: Paxton and Martin (or Montero) for Pillar from the Jays.

That will leave me in total Blissland where the new GM has already established a stomping ground ... and that's because the M's will be back to SRO nights.

And, I gotta believe this is going to help Lind as well ... and sets him up for a better contract next year.

zoom

2 Questions for you Billy

1. So you believe that the M's landed Lee with a handshake agreement that he's on the 25-man for Opening Day? And Lee acquiesced to a minors deal because of assurances the M's needed the time to shuffle their 40-man?

2. How far back do you think this agreement goes - was it the reason the M's were not in on other Korean stars?

That's quite a visual on Pillar and a Gillick-like gin rummy slamdown :- )

This Hey Bill was related

How often will it happen that (a) a hitter comes up to the majors and hits well initially, (b) pitchers detect a weakness and exploit it, and (c) the hitter never adjusts to that first adjustment?

Asked by: bobfiore

Answered: 2/3/2016

I don't know that that ever really happens, but something that looks like that happens sometimes to guys like Hurricane Hazel and Shane Spencer. I don't think it's very common, and I don't know that THAT exactly--what you said--has ever happened. Baseball is a game of refusing to make adjustments. The good hitters stick with what they do. Sometimes weaker hitters get intimidated into making inappropriate adjustments and get driven out of the league by that.

....

I dunno exactly HOW it relates, but it seems to one way or another :- )

Sweeeet

I just love his move. Stop the vid of the single at 1:25 and you get a guy wonderfully relaxed but oh so ready to go meet the ball. Poised & Posed, how's that?

Stop it at 2:10 (the side view) and quickly click through the next 4 seconds: Here's a big guy who is short and quick with the arms, moving laterally to meet the ball. This is the slide move I love from the Asian players. Once he gets to the ball his back toe almost lifts just a bit off the ground, ala Henry Aaron.

There aren't many fastballs in the diet (poor word) of the pitches he gets, it seems they top out at about 85 MPH. OK, maybe that is a fastball over there, but I think he's getting the steady stream of Asian off-speed junk, likely because he doesn't miss the straight stuff very often.

I will bet you a milk shake, or a nice scotch (take your pick), that MLB'ers try to bust him inside with heat. Well, RHP's will, lefties will chuck the slider at his back foot. He'll hurt a few of those pitches before they change attacks.

I wouldn't mind if the contract had a team option year. Not at all.

Good heat always the Q for Asian players

Hopefully Lee's international results speak somewhat to that concern. Obviously the M's have hedged their bets, and that may be the #1 reason why. ... Good reminder Moe Dawg and great reminder on the weight slide.

what was that question again, yer onner?

Supposedly, "25 teams" investigated Park and the band played as they got down to the final eight with anticipation approaching American Idol. His contact? $12 mil for 4 years.

But Kang's emergence last year is what changed all this, nobody was slobbering about this guy coming over and he got a 4 year contract for $11 mil.

So here's Mr. Lee coming into the bright lights of the winter meetings, with a U.S. agent no less, perhaps hoping that those guys (and he has far better plate discipline than those guys) have opened the door for a big contract for him.

Didn't happen.

Hardly anything happened, and Pittsburgh, where Kang stepped right in, was the only team named as pursuing interest in Lee D-H. How much interest did the Cardinals and Rangers (the other purported MLB teams "pursuing him") really express?

So, here is Mr. Lee on an ice floe. Does he give up on himself and lose face and prepare to return to Japan to play another day?

No.

He has every intention of proving a whole lot of teams wrong for ignoring him, or giving him little chance to, according to him, "reach his dream".

Dreams are often elusive, but here he is on the circus grounds and this new GM comes along and says:

"I believe in your dreams".

This ex-player knows about playing the game as well as running the game.

And all this happens this past Saturday (or Sunday) with other staffers taking practice swings over the past month.

All DePoet has to say is "We will give you this chance to outshine Kang and Park. We are the team that gave a certain Mr. Suzuki a chance to put his first name on the back of his jersey. There are many people from Korea in Seattle. And you will have a chance to have their respect and gratitude, along with those from many other places. The papers we sign say that you are on a minor league contract, but all we CAN say is that you only have to prove yourself to be on the opening day team in Seattle."

A handshake deal wasn't necessary, and Lee didn't acquiesce to anything because he believes in himself.

And the $4 mil is not the $15 mil for 3 years he desired.

Dropping a name from the 40 man is certainly worth this $4 mil gamble ...

and I will wager a scotch milk shake (but I'd prefer at least a good micro wager) that Mr. Lee will be on the 25 man on opening day.

"He who can grasp opportunity as She slips by does not need a lucky charm" ... that from author Ernst Brahah nearly 100 years ago.

That doesn't change in any place at any time for anybody.

Now Mr. Lee can prove out. And he'll win his WAR's.

This is the stuff or cornfields and naturals and Parks and Kangs.

As John Prine pointed out: "a question is never a question, if you know the anwer, too".

DePoet was having language problems when Kang came into the League and had plenty of snags to navigate (or had seen pictures of Park's idea of controlling the zone).

Of course, I also throught the team was going all in and way over budget on Maeda.

zoom

John Prine

My goodness, hadn't thought about him in lots of years. Listened to him some, way back in my college days. Had a vinyl or two of his, I believe.

Always liked "Fish & Whistle"

Will have to look up and see which album that one was on. I had it.

Good times.

Lee's Doubles

Lee's doubles are probably a result of a lot of wall bangers. Japanese outfielders are good at getting caroms, but it's still a big part of the game.

This is especially so because Lee played in the Pacific League.
Softbank, Orix, Nippon Ham and Chiba Lotte all have high fences when compared to US counterparts.

How this translates to the Majors, I dunno.
Maybe discount the doubles, or perhaps slide them over to HRs?

This is Gillick territory

From my perspective of being a Mariners fan about 25 years that's what this offseason has been reminiscent of.

I'm excited to see this even if the outcome is more Cruz in the OF. Certainly the 40 man question will be answered in spring as there's so much depth at every position that bubble players with no remaining options play. DiPoto will keep dealing. Montero may well be gone and though it's not my preference I'm willing to believe that what returns will be things that weren't so available this winter, be it cheap young late inning arm or more depth at other thinner positions. Dreamy offseasons like this have been rare for a long time around here.

I can't figure out why...

...but I'm positively giddy about this signing. This guy just 'looks' like a pitch-stalker to me. Though there is no real bona-fide "weight" to my opinion -- maybe it's Lee's weight that, oddly enough, has me encouraged. You see, in the eighties, I used to play tennis with a friend named Fred. Fred was rather large for his height -- and in no way looked like an athlete. But, once you saw him play you quickly came to understand that underneath the "fluffyness" was a man with cat-quick reflexes that would take you down faster than a cheetah on a ground-bound tree sloth if you gave him an opening. Lee reminds me of Fred. Hope I'm right. It makes me feel good to dream (unrealistically) that I might still have a little cheetah left under my middle-aged "fluff" too.

An old SI article on Boog Powell ...

... and two other guys, forget which, maybe the wrestler Chris Taylor?, was titled "Always Ready to Chew the Fat." Three gregarious athletes who struck a blow for overweight middle-aged amigos. One line went, Boog Powell blasts one into the seats ... loosen up your belt buckle. It's going to be all right.

:- )

And I think it pictured Chris Taylor in front of a pyramid of 50 McDonald's burgers that the sportwriter bought him. "He ate three."

Mental Fortitude and Raising Your Game

We can agree, can't we, that the idea of an athlete being able to raise their game in the face of stiffer competition is an immesureable but existing attribute?

Check this video:

https://youtu.be/y8yF3ETSPt8

Watch him not even FLINCH at the death-sphere hurtling mere inches away from his face when he knows the pitcher's intent is harm. That's...that's reason to temporarily lift the ban on explitives if there ever was one.

Then then proceeds to deliberately take the offender DEEP.

This guy may look like a schmuck but that spirit is off the charts. That, combined with this being his one and only shot to prove himself amongst the best in the game, an opportunity he's been pining for for years...You watch. This equation appears to be adding up to something pretty special.

Anyone got dibs on adopting him?

DR DETECTO can certainly agree

Most definitely. His "ki" is a major plus for me.

No guarantees but that's a whale of an observation.

Not loving the options here

Help me out on figuring JD's play here:

1) There IS a handshake agreement that if he just remains upright in spring training, Lee-man has the job.

2) He clearly 'out-competes' Montero...all Pete Carroll-y like...and takes over in triumph.

Now, there are two downsides to those scenarios. First, Montero, who is already a prime 'buy-low' candidate being eyed by the rest of baseball (sort of like a free ice cream sandwich), is sold for even less because he 'lost' his job in spring training. Or worse, no one offers anything (waiting for him to be released.) And second, if Lind decides to flee next year, we now have a very large 34 year old man as our only incumbent first baseman (with the option, of course, to convince Cano that he, too, is old and fat, and thus should make the shift to first).

3) Montero is moved before spring training, putting incredible pressure on Lee, Romero, etc.

4) Lee-man either flops entirely, or simply hangs around Tacoma waiting for someone to get hurt. In which case, of course (assuming he's hitting), JD looks very good.

So I'm having a hard time seeing this now as anything other than a (smart) depth play.

And I repeat that:

--career, Montero is 292/341/429 against lefties

--every time he takes the field, Montero will clearly outplay Lee--which is probably true for almost no other first baseman in the game.

I feel like I'm missing something that makes JD look like a genius.