JHL shifting to right to clear center for Bader

Jung Hoo Lee has spent the last two seasons adjusting to unfamiliar territory.

The former KBO star made the jump to the Majors after signing a six-year, $113 million deal with the Giants in December 2023, forcing him to learn to navigate life in a new league -- and a new country -- for the first time in his career.

This year, Lee will have to contend with yet another transition: moving to right field.

President of baseball operations Buster Posey said Lee will shift to the corner spot to accommodate new center fielder Harrison Bader, who finalized a two-year, $20.5 million deal with the Giants on Friday.

Lee had been used exclusively as a center fielder since debuting with San Francisco in 2024, but he played some right field in his native South Korea and expressed a willingness to return to the position in the Majors.

“Jung Hoo was great,” Posey said during a Zoom call with reporters. “Also, there’s an understanding on our end and to Jung Hoo that there’s a chance that Jung Hoo could still be getting reps in center field. But our plan is to have Bader play in center field.”

The new arrangement should go a long way toward boosting San Francisco’s outfield defense, which tied for last in the Majors with -18 Outs Above Average in 2025. The lackluster fielding was one of the main reasons the Giants were drawn to Bader, who won a Gold Glove with the Cardinals in 2021 and has tallied 76 OAA since 2018 -- by far the most among big league outfielders.

“I just ultimately picked San Francisco because the opportunity was just fantastic to go out there and play my game,” Bader said. “You always want to be an everyday player. I’m just looking forward to going out there and proving and re-proving that every single day. I’m excited.”

While Bader is known primarily for his glove, he’s also coming off a career-best offensive season, as he batted .277 with a .796 OPS, 17 home runs and 11 stolen bases over 146 games between the Twins and the Phillies last year. Bader attributed the surge at the plate to getting healthy -- it took a while to rebuild his strength after undergoing sports hernia surgery in September 2023 -- and making other adjustments in the box.

“I think he’s somebody that was on our radar from the outset,” Posey said. “You look at what he’s done defensively throughout his career, and the eye test matches what the metrics say. He’s just a really strong defender at any position you put him in the outfield. And then what he did with the bat last year, we feel like has staying power. Talking to him and his belief and some of the adjustments that he’s made, he’s a great fit for us.”

The Giants hope Bader’s defensive prowess will rub off on Lee and left fielder Heliot Ramos, both of whom graded out as below-average fielders in 2025. Learning to play right field at Oracle Park can be tricky because of the way the ball caroms off the brick wall, but the Giants are confident Lee will be up to the task, especially since they have a field at their Papago Park facility in Arizona that has the same dimensions as their home ballpark.

“I really want to get to that flow state with these guys,” Bader said. “I want them to remember that defense is just as important as anything else. I really want to continue to stress that. Defense, for me, has always been a massive part of my game because it’s allowed me to let my bat develop offensively.

“My defense is really everything to me. I’m just looking forward to showing that and proving that to these guys. I really care about it, and I want to, if I can, make them better in any way, whether it’s a physical thing or a mental thing. I just know that I’m going to do everything I can in my power to make that unit be extremely cohesive and far better than we were in recent years.”

Even with Bader in the fold, the Giants remain on the hunt for other possible lineup upgrades, most notably at second base, where they’ve been consistently linked to trade targets such as the Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan, the Cubs’ Nico Hoerner and the Nationals’ CJ Abrams.

“A couple of weeks out, we still have some balls in the air here,” Posey said. “We’ll see how it pans out. There’s nothing guaranteed, but we’ll keep working.”

The Giants bolstered their starting rotation by signing Adrian Houser and Tyler Mahle earlier this offseason, but there are still a few notable pitchers available on the free-agent market, including left-hander Framber Valdez.

Could San Francisco still jump into the fray for a top-tier starter this winter?

“We’re happy with our rotation right now,” Posey said. “You’re never going to close doors, but we feel good with the group that we have.”