Can Jung Hoo Lee Bounce Back With Breakout Season in 2025?

When the San Francisco Giants signed Korean star Jung Hoo Lee to a hefty six-year, $113 million deal last offseason, they obviously had high hopes that the former KBO Most Valuable Player would hit the ground running and he did, for a brief moment.

Unfortunately, it didnt take long for a shoulder injury to derail Lees debut season in the United States, and by mid-May, his 2024 campaign was over.

Now recovered and looking ahead to 2025, Lee is hoping to have the breakout year that last season should have been.

The 26-year-old is expected to be full-go for spring training, according to MLB.coms Maria Guardado , and with a strong showing at camp, he should slot back in at center field and possibly the leadoff spot.

So, one year on from being the Giants biggest acquisition of the offseason, can Lee bounce back from injury to dominate in 2025? Lees Debut Season Derailed by Injuries Lees career started in the KBO League the highest level baseball league in South Korea when he was selected as an infielder by the Nexen Heroes in the 2017 KBO League Draft (held in 2016).

Despite never appearing in the KBO Futures League (equivalent to the minor leagues), the 18-year-old impressed enough at spring training to earn a spot on the Heroes Opening Day roster, and after transitioning to the outfield, he made league history by becoming the first rookie out of high school to appear in every game for a KBO team.

In 622 plate appearances during his debut season, Lee slashed .324/.395/.417 with a pair of home runs, 47 RBI, and a rookie-record 179 hits, leading him to win the KBO League Rookie of the Year Award for 2017.

Over the next six years in the KBO League, Lee never faltered in his performance at the plate, despite missing a portion of the 2023 season with a foot injury.

By the time the Heroes posted him to MLB at the end of the 2023 season, the center fielder had won five consecutive KBO Gold Glove Awards (2018-22), twice led KBO in batting average (2021-22), and taken home a KBO Leagues Most Valuable Player Award (2022), while boasting a career slashline of .340/.407/.491 over seven seasons.

When the Giants signed Lee last winter, they were coming off a disappointing 2023 campaign and a string of unsuccessful attempts to sign top free agents, including Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and a truly chaotic saga with Carlos Correa.

San Francisco saw Lee as an absolutely perfect fit to help turn the teams luck around, as Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi explained at the time.

As weve talked about entering this offseason, our goals were to get more athletic as a team from an offensive standpoint, to make more contact and play the kind of baseball where the industry seems to be trending toward, Zaidi told reporters at Lees introductory press conference .

Honestly, as we looked at our options this offseason, there was no player, no target who was more of a perfect fit for what we were hoping to achieve than Jung Hoo.

Unfortunately, Lees inaugural MLB season didnt go to plan.

After recording just 8 hits in his first 45 plate appearances for San Francisco, Lee quickly found his feet, and it appeared his elite bat-to-ball skills had transferred from the KBO League, even if his power was lacking.

After 158 plate appearances, he was slashing .262/.310/.331 with a pair of home runs and 8 RBI, but on May 12, Lee suffered a left shoulder injury when he collided with the centerfield wall while attempting a catch.

Five days later, the Giants announced that the 26-year-old would need labrum surgery, ending his season after just 37 games.

Jung Hoo Lee Is Poised for a Breakout Season in 2025 On January 13, Lee told reporters at South Koreas Incheon International Airport that he is 100 percent healthy, and he plans to stay that way.

First and foremost, my goal is to play the full season without getting hurt, he said, per Yonhap News Agencys Yoo Jee-ho .

And hopefully, I can help the team get to the postseason, too...

I am so grateful for the way the team has taken care of me.

I want to go back out there and help the team the best I can.

I can tell you I am 100 percent healthy now.

Still, Lee has a lot to prove, even if he can stay off the IL.

While a KBO career batting average of .340 doesnt happen on accident, hes yet to show he can replicate it in MLB.

Steamer and ZiPS two major projection systems both forecast an objectively impressive season for Lee in 2025, though nowhere near his KBO numbers.

ZiPS projects Lee to hit .281/.337/.400 with a 110 wRC+ in 2025, while Steamer is more optimistic, forecasting a .294/.351/.438 slashline and 121 wRC+.

For reference, Lees wRC+ when he won KBO League MVP in 2022 was an astounding 174.

Noting that the Giants had sent a team trainer to work with him in South Korea, Lee said hes been focusing on addressing the batting issues he saw before his injury, and is looking to improve his production.

Lee didnt drive the ball or get the ball in the air as much as expected in 2024, though his 158 plate appearances for San Francisco obviously offered a minimal sample size.

I am in the process of addressing that problem, and if it all goes well, I should be able to start driving the ball better, Lee told reporters.

Even though I only played a little bit last year, I still think I showed something noteworthy.

For now, I am going to stick to what Ive been doing all along.

If Lee can do exactly that what hes been doing all along and stay healthy, hes poised to be a breakout star in 2025.

He wasnt able to put his skills on display last year, but Lees resume is far too consistently impressive for anyone to think his KBO stats are out of reach this season.

Now, its just up to Lee to prove he can be the absolutely perfect fit for the Giants that Zaidi believed he was last winter.

This article first appeared on Just Baseball and was syndicated with permission..

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