Now Off The Market, Should Mariners Regret Not Re-Signing Dae-Ho Lee?

Of all the surprising events that took place in 2016, if Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto had re-signed Dae-Ho Lee and put him in as the lone man at first base, you might have thought, “Hmm, that doesn’t seem too far-fetched.” But now that Lee has re-signed with his old Korean Baseball Organization club, the Lotte Giants, for four years and 12.9 million dollars, the M’s and their fans will only be able to wonder, “what if he had stayed?”.

Despite the fact that Mariners fans -and the organization as a whole for that matter- seemed to love Lee’s personality, spirit and rotund belly that rivaled those of Pablo Sandoval and Prince Fielder, the front office didn’t feel that giving Lee the reigns to control first base on his own was best for the club.

Over 104 games, Lee belted 14 home runs and drove in 49 RBIs all while hitting .253 as he traded off playing first with his teammate, Adam Lind.

Dipoto liked using a platoon at first base even though the rest of the league wasn’t buying into this strategy. He liked it so much, even if there was a mediocre success with it last year, that he made sure his team would have two men playing first again.

However, it was exactly this that turned Lee off to returning to returning to the club that helped him fulfill his life-long dream of playing the MLB.

Lee had stated:

“Playing time is an important factor to consider when choosing a team,” Lee said (via the aforementioned Korean Times link). “…Early on, it was fun to come off the bench to pinch hit, but it started to hurt my pride later. I wanted to play more, but it’s entirely up to the manager how he runs the team. I have no hard feelings for manager Servais. If anything, I should have played better and tried harder.”

Lee could have played better, but let’s remember that this was his first year in the big leagues after playing in the talent-filled, but overall less challenging, KBO and Nippon leagues.

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Nevertheless, he ranked 25th out of 34 men in home runs having played at least one hundred games. He also ranked 24th in RBI among those same players. And this goes without mentioning his .253 average which ranked him at 19th.

However, if we adjust his stats to play a fuller season at let’s say 150 games, He would’ve jumped up a few spots in home runs and RBI, ending up in 17th with 20 and 15th with 71 respectively.

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Considering again that he was an MLB rookie and his salary was the 3rd lowest in baseball for men hitting the century mark in games played, these numbers aren’t too shabby.

Of the 34 aforementioned players, only C.J. Cron of the Los Angeles Angeles and Clint Robinson of the Washington Nationals made less.

We could imagine that if Lee had re-signed with the Mariners that it would have been a deal somewhere between what he signed for with the Lotte Giants and what he was being paid last year, which would’ve been a few million less than his replacement, Danny Valencia, who just settled on 5.5 million dollars in arbitration.

Who knows how he would’ve done in a second season in the MLB, but if he had stayed put with similar numbers, the Mariners could’ve made all the same deals they did this off-season and they could’ve had a cheaper first baseman who puts up OK numbers.

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Yet, seeing that this is all hypothetical rambling, Lee’s signing with Lotte is water on the bridge, but he will be missed. I’m sure I speak for all Mariners fans when I say, “good luck in your return to your old club, we appreciate what you did the the M’s organization.”