How Jung Hoo Lee Will Benefit From the Giants’ Latest Additions

Up until just a few weeks ago, it was looking like a bleak and underwhelming offseason for the San Francisco Giants. After the team finished 81-81 in 2025, fans expected real change and legitimate upgrades to the roster.

With his first few moves of the winter, it looked like Buster Posey was setting first-time manager Tony Vitello up for failure. Now, after the Giants signed veterans Luis Arraez and Harrison Bader within the same week, the groundbreaking skipper has two fresh names to pencil into his lineup every day.

They may not have been the flashiest free agents, but they will help the Giants in areas in which they desperately needed a boost. Posey clearly addressed some outlying issues from last year’s squad, namely an abysmal outfield defense and a bottom-third offense in terms of batting average.

In particular, one player’s future looks a little bit different after San Francisco’s latest acquisitions. Let’s break down why Jung Hoo Lee will be the most impacted by the Giants’ fresh faces – in the best way possible.

In the Outfield

It’s no secret that the Giants had arguably the worst defensive outfield in Major League Baseball last season. Heliot Ramos was undoubtedly the worst of the bunch, but Jung Hoo Lee wasn’t too far behind him.

Whether it was hesitancy due to his season-ending injury in 2024 or a simple lack of good reads off the bat, the former KBO MVP struggled manning center field for the Giants.

His -18 Defensive Runs Saved and -5 Outs Above Average both ranked last in terms of qualified center fielders, while his Fielding Run Value of -2 barely inched out league-worst Trent Grisham.

While the organization expected him to improve after an entire offseason’s work on that side of the ball, they still decided to shore up the position and bring in one of the best outfield defenders in the sport across the last decade.

Since the start of 2017, Harrison Bader leads all outfielders (min. 4,000 outfield innings) in Outs Above Average with 77. Now, he’ll be patrolling one of the biggest outfields in the league at Oracle Park for half his games.

This move was a clear signal of the front office’s belief in prioritizing outfield defense, but it could be seen as a blessing in disguise for Lee. Of course, he’ll have to quickly attempt to learn the dimensions of Oracle Park’s right field before the start of the season, but fortunately, his first full MLB season made it clear that he profiles as more of a right fielder anyway.

Right field is widely known to be the one outfield position where you absolutely need a strong arm. In 2025, that ended up being the best part of Lee’s game on the defensive side of things.

His arm strength ranked in the 91st percentile, while his arm value ranked in the 87th. With his sub-par range in center field, this should provide hope for the Giants that Lee can slide over to right successfully.

His 70th percentile sprint speed also suggests that he can cover a lot more ground than he displayed in 2025. The real question is whether he’ll be able to use that well-above-average arm and decent speed to be more than just a passable defender as he moves to a corner.

At the Plate

While Jung Hoo Lee’s first full season was solid, he wasn’t the consistent offensive player that Giants fans were expecting. However, their newest signing could play a role in helping Lee take a big step forward in 2026.

Luis Arraez is arguably the most polarizing player in baseball due to his style of play. He’s not a good defender and doesn’t bring anything to the table on offense outside of hitting for average and avoiding strikeouts.

Jung Hoo Lee does project to slug more than Arraez across his career, but having a three-time batting champ in the clubhouse could help bring out the elite hit tool we saw from Lee in the KBO.

From his KBO debut as an 18-year-old rookie in 2017 to his MVP season in 2022, Lee hit above .320 each year. This was highlighted by a monster 2021 season in which he hit .360.

Of course, we wouldn’t expect a batting average nearly that high from him in MLB, but many around the industry still expected Lee to hit close to .300 when he made the transition.

Since the start of 2021, Arraez leads baseball in this department with a .315 batting average.

Now, when it comes to avoiding a strikeout, Arraez really is in a league of his own. His 5.7% strikeout rate since the start of 2021 is almost four points better than the next qualified guy behind him (Steven Kwan, 9.5%). He only struck out 21 times in his 620 at-bats in 2025.

While he’s not quite on the level of Arraez, Lee is still in the upper echelon of major leaguers when we’re talking about not striking out. His strikeout rate of just 11.5% finished as the ninth best mark among qualified hitters in 2025.

If he takes a few notes from his new teammate, we could see Lee inch closer to being the hitter we expected to see when he came over from the KBO. Combine that with a potential uptick in defensive value, and the Giants could have one of the better right fielders in baseball out of nowhere.