Lee Seung-yeop Out of the Spotlight Matsui Into the Spotlight

A calm before the storm? Or a storm in a teapot?

On November 13, “National hitter” Lee Seung-yeop (27 years old, Samsung) will become a free agent (FA) in four days. Unlike the earlier expectations that as soon as he becomes a FA, Major League Teams will cast amorous glances at him, things are extremely silent. Lee Seung-yeop even turned off his cellular phone and has sequestered himself from society. His agency, SFX, has not said anything new.

Judging from the recent circumstances, Lee Seung-yeop hasn’t received any calls for negotiating a contract yet. As Lee Seung-yeop came home to Korea, having finished the Asia Baseball Championship on November 8, he commented on the Anaheim Angels, which was known as one of his likely suitors, saying, “It might not be.” With that saying, we can guess that there was contact between them in any ways, but they failed to reach an agreement.

In Anaheim Angels, regular first baseman Scott Spiezio declared for free agency and the backup player, Brad Fullmer, was released due to injury. It takes 40 minutes to travel to Anaheim by car from Los Angeles where there are many Koreans.

However, American press still considers the Anaheim Angels and the L.A. Dodgers to be the front-runners to sign Lee. The L.A. Times reported this on November 11, and ESPN quoted this on its “Rumor Central” section. However, Lee didn’t get a good review on the Anaheim homepage. American fans think that even though Lee hit 56 home runs, the level of Korean baseball is comparable to Double A or Triple A, thus even New York Yankees’ Matsui Hideki, who hit 50 homers in Japan, only hit 16 home runs in the Major Leagues.

There has been a report that Baltimore and Oakland are also trying to sign Lee, but that was predicted by an article without revealing sources. Major league’s official homepage (mlb.com) wrote, “Slugger Lee Seung-Yeop is being pursued by 10 Major League teams,” quoting the Korean source.

On the other hand, “Little Matsui,” Japanese Matsui Kazuo (28 years old, Seibu Lions), is being given the royal red carpet treatment. ESPN reported this year’s FA ranking and ranked Matsui in 9th place on November 11. The ranking is higher than that of Greg Maddux (11th place, Atlanta) who has won at least 15 victories for 16 consecutive years and “RBI Machine” Juan Gonzalez (25th place, Texas). Switch hitter Matsui has hit .300 or better for seven straight seasons, and he has been highly regarded as a player who is good in batting, defense, and running.

About 10 Major League teams including the New York Yankees, and Japan’s Yomiuri Giants and Nippon Ham fighters are interested in Matsui.

But this is just the beginning. Lee’s trip to America will be on a swift current after November 15 when the Major League general managers’ meeting is over.

Hwan-Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com