Will Korea-U.S. strike king be born for the first time in history? A move has been made to predict that Lee Jung-hoo (27) of the San Francisco Giants, who is entering his second year in the Major League Baseball, will rank No. 1 in batting.

MLB.com , the official website of the Major League, held various titles of the two major leagues in the 2025 season (National League and American League) on the 23rd (Korea time). To this end, 59 experts from MLB.com expressed their opinions.

The player who received the most votes in the batting average category of the National League was Luis Arraez of the San Diego Padres. He already ranked first in the category with a batting average of 0.314 last year after Minnesota (0.316 batting average) in 2022 and Miami (0.354) in 2023. He became the eighth player in the history of the Major League to become the batting champion for the third consecutive year.

Juan Soto (New York Mets), who signed the contract with the highest amount of money in the history of the big leagues (US$765 million for 15 years), followed by Lee Jung-hoo among the players who garnered the remaining votes. Lee was nominated along with Shohei Ohtani (LA Dodgers), Trey Turner (Philadelphia), and Corbin Carroll (Arizona).

Considering Lee's performance last year, it is a surprise. Having challenged himself to the U.S. stage by receiving a whopping 113 million U.S. dollars for six years, he posted a batting average of 0.262 (38 hits in 145 at-bats), two homers, eight RBIs, 10 walks and 13 strikeouts, an on-base percentage of 0.310, a slugging percentage of 0.331, and an OPS of 0.641 in 37 games during the 2024 season. Although he had gradually improved his performance through early adjustment, he was out for the season due to a dislocated shoulder while playing defense in mid-May.

In fact, Lee Jung-hoo was named the "dark horse" last season as well. "There may be doubts about his power or athletic ability, but there is no need to doubt his batting ability," said Brian Murphy, a staff member of MLB.com . However, in December last year, he confessed, "My prediction that Lee Jung-hoo would be the batting champion has completely gone against the grain."

However, Lee's performance is excellent again this year. Through his own performance forecasting program "Steamer," the U.S. baseball statistics media FanGraph predicts that Lee will have a batting average of 0.294, 14 homers, 62 RBIs, 88 runs and 13 steals in 143 games in the 2025 season, a on-base percentage of 0.351, a slugging percentage of 0.438 and an OPS of 0.789, and a victory contribution (War) of 3.9 wins compared to replacement players.

Notably, he ranks second overall in the National League in terms of batting average, with only Arazez having an expected batting average of 0.307 on top of that. Fangraph predicted that Lee will have a 7.6 percent walk rate and a 9.7 percent strikeout rate this year, which is tied for second among 662 players that Fangraph predicted. He thus highly evaluated Lee's contact ability, resulting in such a result. 카지노

If Lee becomes the No. 1 hitter, he will renew the history of Korean baseball. The only time a Korean player has won a title in the big league was when Ryu Hyun-jin (2.32) ranked No. 1 in ERA in the National League in 2019 when he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He has never been a batter. Already a two-time batting champion in Korea (2021-2022), Lee will challenge to become No. 1 in batting average between Korea and the U.S.

In 12 exhibition games this year, Lee Jung-hoo had a batting average of 0.300 (9 hits in 30 at-bats), two homers, five RBIs and nine runs, a on-base percentage of 0.400 slugging percentage of 0.567 and an OPS of 0.967. In particular, he was continuing his transformation into the third batter by throwing strong balls in succession. However, he has been unable to play since then due to back pain while sleeping poorly ahead of the game against Seattle on the 16th.

"I have never experienced this severe," he confessed, but fortunately, MRI showed no structural damage to his lower back. "It would be great if Lee Jung-hoo played in all three games before the season starts," San Francisco coach Bob Melvin said. After boosting his sense of play, he will see whether he will play in the opening game or not.