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In his first ups on Sunday, Dae-Ho Lee faced on 0-2 count against LHP Martin Perez.  He got a 93 mph fastball in on the black, letter high, real tough jam pitch.  He pulled his elbows in and smacked it solidly into center field for a single.  Tremendous plate coverage!, he hits balls shin high, hits them off the black, fights them off inside, destroys mistakes.  He had a long single to left later in the game.  He's batting .319/.354/.582 in right about a 100 plate appearances.

Sure, anything can happen in a hundred chances.  But you've watched this guy hit just like I have.  He sits five days, and then he comes in on the sixth day and times the ball like it's August he's played fifty straight games.  Could Nelson Cruz hit if he played every fifth day?

Also, he's doing it having never seen these pitchers before - he's brand new to the league; he could be forgiven even if he were struggling in American double-A ball, much less the majors.  

Also also, there's the obvious plate coverage.  And the demonstrated power.  It's possible that he'll bat .220/.300/.400 the rest of the way, but stats aside, this dude has looked like a bona fide middle of the order bat.  You don't scout Cubans based on a hundred American at-bats; you scout them by scouting them.  Dae-Ho Lee, in 2016, has scouted as a 90-RBI man.

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$64,000 QUESTION

So here's the thing.  Let's just say, for a second, that Dae-Ho Lee woulda hit like Nelson Cruz the last five years, or almost that well.  If he'd been here the last five years. Let's stipulate that as a given, and then move on from there.

So why didn't he hit even better than he did in Japan?  Wouldn't Nelson Cruz hit .360/.450/.650 over there?  (Lee hit .280/.370/.520 last year in Japan.)

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I don't have anything against the idea that -- once in a while -- you run into an athlete who is better suited for pro leagues than college.  Patrick Ewing was pretty good as a college center, but then he came to the NBA and turned into Godzilla.  Michael Bennett was that way.  Kyle Seager's "true talent level" seemed to get higher every time you promoted him.  etc. etc.

IF it were true that Dae-Ho Lee were a 6.0 runs per 27 outs player in Asia, but still 5.5 RC/27 in America, why might that be?

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1) His controlled power swing.  Lee's average HR speed off the bat is "only" 99.8 MPH on his eight homers.  He takes a very compact swing on his HR's.  It could be that Asian dink-and-dunk pitching just doesn't "supply the power" the way it does for Lee's stateside homers.

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2) His ability to hit a 96 MPH fastball.  This skill was mostly just wasted in Asia, like if Richard Sherman had played 1930's NFL football.

To answer Gnatto's question about whether Major Leaguers really throw harder ... well, it ain't like a 91-92 MPH fastball is unusual over there.  91 MPH is routine, as far as I can tell.  But few NPB pitchers can throw 94-95 MPH challenge pitches, as of course Iwakuma cannot; the typical NPB pitcher doesn't have that weapon in his back pocket for enemy batters who don't respect it.  

Whereas many if not most right hand MLB pitchers can reach back and fire it past you at 94+ if you don't guard against it (e.g. Taijuan, Karns, Felix until recently, all of last year's Mariner relievers).  Certainly NPB bullpens aren't stocked with four different guys who throw 95 MPH routinely (DiPoto's bullpen this year is an outlier).  In America if a batter is not effective against 95+, they'll just torture him with sheer velocity and run him out of the league. 

Several of Lee's big RBI hits have been off 95 MPH fastballs low and centered.

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3) His Asian record isn't contradictory to a .280/.340/.500 true level of talent.  Lee had some real big years in Asia, as Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager had some big years in the American minors.  He had three or four years with 1000+ OPS's, and American hitting stars don't usually show unblemished strings of .700 SLG's in the minors.  

Sometimes when a minor leaguer has glitzy stats up and down the card, it's because he's really good at hitting minor league pitching.  Whole lot of Jeff Clements, Carlos Pegueros and Bryan LaHairs have been good at posting .600 SLG lines against minor league pitchers.

Dae-Ho Lee is a player who looks like he's good at hitting major league pitching.  

Enjoy,

Jeff