{"id":555644,"date":"2026-01-31T05:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/555644\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T05:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:59:09","slug":"giants-notes-lee-matos-rotation-closer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/555644\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants Notes: Lee, Matos, Rotation, Closer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Giants officially announced their two-year deal with\u00a0Harrison Bader<\/a><\/strong> on Friday afternoon. President of baseball operations Buster Posey and general manager Zack Minasian conducted a conference call with the beat to introduce their new outfielder.<\/p>\n

Posey confirmed that Bader will be the everyday center fielder, a move that pushes\u00a0Jung Hoo Lee<\/a><\/strong> into right field on most days (link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area<\/a>). It doesn\u2019t appear the incumbent center fielder had any issue with the change. \u201cJung Hoo was great,\u201d Posey said of his reaction to the signing. \u201cAlso there\u2019s an understanding on our end and to Jung Hoo that there\u2019s a chance that he could still be getting reps in center field. But our plan is to have Bader playing center field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee had a decent amount of right field experience in Korea. He has played exclusively up the middle over his two seasons in the majors. Lee\u2019s physical tools are strong. He\u2019s an above-average runner with plus arm strength. His first step and routes weren\u2019t as polished, and defensive metrics weren\u2019t fond of his overall work. Statcast graded him five runs below average, while Defensive Runs Saved had him a glaring 18 runs worse than an average center fielder. No player had a worse DRS mark at the position.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old should grade more favorably in his new position. He\u2019s a much better athlete than most corner outfielders. There\u2019ll still be plenty of ground to cover in home games thanks to Oracle Park\u2019s massive right-center gap. The move to a corner will put a little more pressure on the bat. Lee is coming off a solid but unspectacular .266\/.327\/.407 slash across 617 plate appearances. That\u2019s much better than the .241\/.303\/.395 league mark for center fielders but lands more middle-of-the-pack in right, where the average player batted .247\/.319\/.422 last year.<\/p>\n

Right field was the biggest weak point in the San Francisco lineup. After they traded Mike Yastrzemski<\/a><\/strong> at the deadline, their right fielders hit .202\/.249\/.376 across 194 plate appearances.\u00a0Drew Gilbert<\/a><\/strong> projects as a fourth or fifth outfielder.\u00a0Luis Matos<\/a><\/strong> was a well-regarded prospect but hasn\u2019t found much success on either side of the ball over three MLB seasons. Matos is out of minor league options and will be a player to watch in camp, as he\u2019ll either need to win a bench job or be taken off the 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

Pushing Lee to right field leaves second base as the last potential position of need. The Giants have looked for upgrades over\u00a0Casey Schmitt<\/a><\/strong>, with reports tying them to various trade targets (e.g.\u00a0Brendan Donovan<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Nico Hoerner<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0CJ Abrams<\/a><\/strong>). Posey declined to go into specifics in response to a question about trading for a second baseman, but that appears to be a bigger priority than further augmenting the rotation. The Giants stayed away from the top of the market, instead signing back-end arms Tyler Mahle<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Adrian Houser<\/a><\/strong> to short-term deals.<\/p>\n

Even as\u00a0Framber Valdez<\/a><\/strong> remains unsigned, Posey downplayed the desire to add another starter. \u201cWe\u2019re happy with our rotation right now, with some of the adjustments that Houser made last year, and we feel <\/b>like Mahle is in a good place physically,\u201d he said (relayed by John Shea of The San Francisco Standard<\/a>). \u201cYou\u2019re never going to close doors, but we feel good with the group that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve taken a similar approach to the bullpen despite losing key contributors\u00a0Camilo Doval<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Tyler Rogers<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Randy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a><\/strong> (the latter to Tommy John surgery) from last season. They\u2019ve taken one-year fliers on\u00a0Sam Hentges<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Jason Foley<\/a><\/strong>, both of whom are returning from shoulder surgeries. There\u2019ll be plenty of high-leverage innings available as first-year manager Tony Vitello evaluates the group. That extends to the closer role.\u00a0Ryan Walker<\/a><\/strong> has the most ninth-inning experience of their relievers but is coming off an uneven year.<\/p>\n

Walker tells Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> that he\u2019s hoping to win the job, though it seems like it\u2019ll be an open competition in Spring Training. \u201cAs we sit here today, I think we\u2019re hoping that Ryan Walker can get back to his 2024 form. But without discussing it with Tony in depth, I guess the way that I would see it now is that we\u2019ll see who steps up,\u201d Posey told reporters (including Slusser). \u201cWe\u2019re not coming into this season necessarily with one guy that we say, \u2018You are going to be the closer.\u2019 There\u2019s a chance that somebody takes the reins and does slot in to that closer role as we get into the season, but right now I wouldn\u2019t say that there\u2019s one person that we\u2019re targeting for the ninth inning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Giants officially announced their two-year deal with\u00a0Harrison Bader on Friday afternoon. President of baseball operations Buster Posey…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":555645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[11315,42935,99010,1266,99012,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-555644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-framber-valdez","tag-jung-hoo-lee","tag-luis-matos","tag-mlb","tag-ryan-walker","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115988186006123690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}