Per reports, Harrison Bader agreed to two year contract with the Giants for $20.5M, and incentives could raise that to $21.0M. Posey reported that Bader will play CF, where he has won a gold glove before.
Posey also noted that Jung Hoo Lee took the news of moving to RF well, and Lee was also told that he would still get starts in CF, which fits what Vitello said in a recent interview, that the starters in the outfield will be fluid. Apparently Lee has played a lot of RF in KBO, and his StatCast physical stats compared well with other MLB RF, so they expect him to be good defensively there.
To clear space on the 40 man, they traded pitcher Kai-Wei Teng to the Astros, for a catcher, Jameel Vlattoel and international a lot money.
ogc thoughts
Harrison Bader is a career .247/.313/.401/.714 hitter, good for a CF, but basically an average hitter, and though he had a great offensive season last year, clearly he was paid based on his 2022-24 performances, where he averaged 0.9 bWAR per season, as his contract is paying him to produce a little over 1.0 WAR per season. With his speed, but low OBP, he’s probably the 9th hitter in the lineup, being the secondary leadoff hitter.
Part of the calculus for the low AAV appears to be that he’s been injured a lot too during his career. In 2025, his season playing 146 games was the first time he has played more than 139 games, and the last time he played 138 games in a season was his first full MLB season, in 2018. He has had a number of injuries, hamstring last season, and a sports hernia at the end of 2023 that required surgery. If the Giants can keep him healthy, he should be a great addition.
Should he somehow repeat his 2025 season and produce nearly 4 WAR, his contract would be a huge bargain, up there with their first contract with Aubrey Huff. Given that SF has a pitcher’s park, I would be happy if he hits his career average, as that plus good defense would be more than worth his contract. Plus that would be a huge improvement over his .239/.284/.360/.644 batting line for 2022-24.
He has stated in interviews that he has figured some things out that helped him hit better. However, his StatCast expected BA and SLG suggest that he was lucky in 2025 to hit that well: .220/.290/.374/.664 would have been his batting line had his balls fallen normally.
But that’s not what he was acquired for, to repeat his 2025 season, though that would be a great thing, he was acquired to greatly improve the outfield defense. Both Heliot Ramos and Jung Hoo Lee were among the worst defensive outfielders per a variety of metrics. Lee was particularly bad per DRS, almost two wins below average. With Bader taking over CF, it could be a two to three win swing in defense from Lee to Bader.
And Drew Gilbert played so poorly in RF (per DRS) that it won’t take much for Lee to match the +3 DRS produced in RF last season. And even if he’s simply average, 0 DRS, overall with Bader in CF, the switch would add 2-3 wins defensively. Lee would have to be as bad as he was in 2025 for Bader to not greatly improve the OF defense.
Bader has been one of the best defensive CF since he reached the majors, top 5 in OAA and DRS. And Lee is still learning to be a MLB CF. So logically, Bader should play CF.
Is Lee That Bad in CF?
I still think Lee could be okay defensively in CF. Someone I talk with online says that we know what Lee is, he’s been in KBO for six years and 1.3 years in MLB, so he is what he is, bad defensively. But that ignores the fact that when he was signed, he was expected to be a plus defensive player, not one of the worst defenders. It could just be a matter of adjustment.
So I don’t think we know yet how bad Lee is. And I think it’s also telling that Ramos at the same time had one of his worst performances as well in LF. He wasn’t ever viewed as a plus defender, but he wasn’t considered so horrible that he should be a DH. Neither he nor Jung Hoo were considered that bad defensively.
And Lee even said that he needed to change how he communicated with his fellow outfielders, which implies that there were problems working with one another.
Maybe he can observe how Bader handles CF, plus see the work that Bader puts in (he talks a lot about his process so far in interviews, he really loves being a great defender), and gain improvement from learning from the master.
Helps Ramos Too
And hopefully this helps Ramos too. He had a poor season in LF, and as I noted, it appears that he had trouble working with Lee in CF. Bader should be able to help smooth things out, plus help out more in the gap. If he can also cut down on his poor fielding, then the outfield could become a good defense overall, matching the infield.
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