Lee Seung-Yeop: Wikis

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Lee Seung Yeop

Yomiuri Giants — No. 25
First baseman
Born: August 18, 1976 (1976-08-18) (age 33) Daegu, South Korea
Bats: Left	Throws: Left
Professional debut
1995 for the Samsung Lions
statistics (through 2008 season)
Batting average	.296
Home runs	447
Runs batted in	1289
Hits	1827
Doubles	400
Teams
Samsung Lions (1995–2003) Chiba Lotte Marines (2004–2005) Yomiuri Giants (2006–present)
Career highlights and awards
5× KBO MVP (1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003) 2× KBO Golden Glove Award winner (1998, 2000) 2× Korean Series champion (2001, 2002) Japan Series champion (2009)

Men’s Baseball
Olympic medal record
Bronze	2000 Sydney	Team
Gold	2008 Beijing	Team

Lee Seung-yeop also Lee Seung-yuop (born August 18, 1976 in Daegu, South Korea) is a baseball player, currently playing for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan's Central League. Nicknamed "Lion King" since his days with the Samsung Lions, while being affectionately known as "Mr. Seung" during his playing days with the Chiba Lotte Marines, Lee is arguably the greatest hitter in Korean baseball history. At the age of 26, he became the youngest professional baseball player in the world to hit 300 home runs. He also holds the Asian home run record of 56 homers in a season, established in 2003 while playing for the Samsung Lions in the Korean league.

1 Professional career
2 2008 Summer Olympics
3 Career statistics
- 3.1 Career Statistics in KBO
- 3.2 Career statistics in NPB
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

Professional career

Lee started his career with the Daegu Samsung Lions of the Korean Baseball Organization in 1995 and played with them for nine seasons. He then played for the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan's Pacific League for two years. He signed a one-year contract with the Yomiuri Giants for 210 million yen, including a 50 million yen signing bonus, for the 2006 season. He bats fourth and plays first base there. He has explicitly shown interest in making a move to Major League Baseball.

He had a slow start in Japan. Lee hit just 14 home runs and drove in 50 runs while batting .240 in 100 games. In the next season, he greatly improved, making 30 home runs and 82 RBI while batting .260 in 117 games.

He was selected to play for the Korea national baseball team in the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006. He batted .333 and led all players in the tournament with 5 home runs and 10 RBI. This has increased speculation that an MLB team might eventually sign him. However, Lee was under contract to play with the Yomiuri Giants for the 2006 season. On 1 August 2006, Lee became only the third professional baseball player ever to hit 400-career home runs before the age of 30 (others include Sadaharu Oh and Alex Rodriguez).^[1] In the 2006 season, he batted .323 with 41 homers.

On August 3, 2006, a report on MLB Radio on XM satellite radio stated that the New York Yankees and Lee had agreed to start negotiations during the offseason after the 2006 regular season. The South Korean daily, ChosunIlbo, had reported on July 19 that the Yankees had expressed interest in the slugger.^[2]

After the conclusion of the 2006 season, Lee Seung-Yeop re-signed with the Yomiuri Giants, citing that he wishes to win a Japan Series with the team. However, there is also a clause which allows Lee to be a free agent if the Giants win the series.

As of February 2008, Lee Seung-Yeop still has not made an effort to play in the Major Leagues. He may have lost his best chance to play in MLB in 2004 when he demanded the LA Dodgers include verbiage in any contract they offered guaranteeing him a starting position, something no MLB player has ever had written into a contract.

Lee is 6'0" tall and his playing weight is listed at 187 pounds (85 kg).^[3]

2008 Summer Olympics

Lee played for the South Korean national team in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Slowed down by an injury to his left thumb, Lee struggled in the preliminary rounds, limited to 3-for-22 (.136) with two runs batted in and no home runs, before coming alive in the medal round games against Japan and Cuba.

In the semifinal game against Team Japan, Lee hit a dramatic go-ahead two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning off reliever Hitoki Iwase, which proved to be the winning runs in Korea's 6-2 win.

In the gold medal game against Cuba, Lee hit a two-run home run in the first inning off Cuban starter Norberto González to help Korea defeat Cuba and win the gold medal.^[4]

Career statistics

Career Statistics in KBO

Season	Team	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	SF	BB	HBP	K	GIDP	E	AVG	SLG	OBP	OPS
1995	Lions	121	365	55	104	29	1	13	73	0	9	33	4	54	4	8	0.285	0.477	0.345	0.822
1996	Lions	122	459	57	139	32	6	9	76	4	6	34	5	42	10	5	0.303	0.458	0.354	0.812
1997	Lions	126	517	96	170	37	3	32	114	5	5	49	6	79	10	4	0.329	0.598	0.391	0.989
1998	Lions	126	477	100	146	32	2	38	102	0	8	78	5	97	4	3	0.306	0.621	0.404	1.025
1999	Lions	132	486	128	157	33	2	54	123	10	4	112	12	114	7	0	0.323	0.733	0.458	1.191
2000	Lions	125	454	108	133	33	0	36	95	4	3	80	7	113	5	2	0.293	0.604	0.404	1.008
2001	Lions	127	463	101	128	31	2	39	95	4	3	96	12	130	6	4	0.276	0.605	0.412	1.017
2002	Lions	133	511	123	165	42	2	47	126	1	2	89	15	109	11	4	0.323	0.689	0.436	1.125
2003	Lions	131	479	115	144	23	0	56	144	7	6	101	10	89	11	5	0.301	0.699	0.428	1.217
Total	-	1143	4211	883	1286	292	18	324	948	35	46	672	76	827	68	35	0.305	0.614	0.410	1.024

Career statistics in NPB

Season	Team	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	SF	BB	HBP	K	GIDP	E	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2004	Lotte	100	333	50	80	20	4	14	50	1	4	42	3	88	6	4	0.240	0.328	0.450	0.779
2005	Lotte	117	408	64	106	25	2	30	82	5	3	33	1	79	9	2	0.260	0.315	0.551	0.886
2006	Yomiuri	143	524	101	169	30	0	41	108	5	7	56	5	126	5	3	0.323	0.389	0.616	1.003
2007	Yomiuri	137	541	84	148	29	2	30	74	4	3	38	1	119	8	5	0.274	0.322	0.501	0.823
2008	Yomiuri	45	170	21	38	4	0	8	27	1	0	11	6	37	3	0	0.248	0.324	0.431	0.755
Total	-	542	2172	320	541	108	8	123	341	16	17	180	16	449	31	14	0.276	0.339	0.528	0.867

References

^ Page Error : 찾으시는 Page의 URL이 잘못되었거나 없습니다
^ Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea
^ "Seung-Yeop Lee Profile". Japanesebaseball.com. 2008-08-23. http://www.japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=1797. Retrieved 2008-08-23.
^ "Korea clips Cuba to take baseball gold". Reuters. 2008-08-23. http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Olympics/idUSPEK31662920080823. Retrieved 2008-08-23.

External links

Yomiuri Giants Official Website (Japanese)

Yomiuri Giants current roster

First squad	0 Takahito Kudo \| 00 Takayuki Terauchi \| 2 Michihiro Ogasawara \| 5 Alex Ramírez \| 6 Hayato Sakamoto \| 8 Yoshitomo Tani \| 9 Yoshiyuki Kamei \| 10 Shinnosuke Abe \| 12 Takahiro Suzuki \| 15 Shota Kimura \| 17 Shun Tono \| 20 Kiyoshi Toyoda \| 22 Daisuke Ochi \| 23 Ryota Wakiya \| 25 Lee Seung-Yeop \| 26 Tetsuya Utsumi \| 28 Norihito Kaneto \| 30 Masahide Kobayashi \| 31 Tetsuya Matsumoto \| 33 Takahiko Nomaguchi \| 37 Soichi Fujita \| 42 Marc Kroon \| 43 Kazunari Tsuruoka \| 44 Noriyoshi Omichi \| 47 Tetsuya Yamaguchi \| 49 Dicky Gonzalez \| 51 Shigeyuki Furuki \| 91 Wirfin Obispo

Second squad	7 Hisayoshi Tyono 11 Yuya Kubo \| 13 Yasunari Takagi \| 19 Kyohei Tsutimoto \| 24 Yoshinobu Takahashi \| 27 Yuuya Ichikawa \| 29 Seth Greisinger \| 32 Zyunpei ono \| 35 Kentaro Nishimura \| 36 Micheal Nakamura \| 38 Edgar Gonzalez \| 39 Takanobu Tsujiuchi \| 40 Ken Kato \| 45 Masakuni Odajima \| 46 Toru Murata \| 48 Kenji Yano \| 50 Ryuichi Kajimae \| 52 Hidetoshi Tsuburaya \| 53 Kazunari Sanematsu \| 54 Daisuke Fujimura \| 55 Taishi Ohta \| 56 Hiroki Nakazawa \| 57 Yuki Furukawa \| 58 Takanori Hoshi \| 59 Satoshi Fukuda \| 60 Takuya Fukata \| 61 Daisuke Nakai \| 62 Takahisa Ueno \| 63 Atsushi Nakazato \| 64 Masato Kiyashiki \| 65 Takefumi Miyamoto \| 66 Daijiro Tanaka \| 67 Keisuke Saitoh \| 68 Masafumi Togano \| 69 Tomoya Inzen \| 93 Shoki Kasahara \| 94 Itaru Hashimoto \| 99 Syugo fujii

Coaching	Manager: 88 Tatsunori Hara \| Second squad manager: 83 Kaoru Okazaki

South Korea 2000 Summer Olympics Roster

P Koo Dae-Sung \| P Kim Soo-Kyung \| P Park Seok-Jin \| P Son Min-Han \| P Song Jin-Woo \| P Lee Seung-Ho \| P Chong Tae-Hyon \| P Lim Chang-Yong \| P Jin Pil-jung \| P Lim Sun-Dong \| P Chung Min-Tae \| C Park Kyung-Oan \| C Hong Sung-Heon \| IF Kim Dong-Joo \| IF Kim Tae-Gyun \| IF Kim Han-Soo \| IF Park Jong-Ho \| IF Lee Seung-Yeop \| IF Park Jin-Man \| OF Kim Ki-Tae \| OF Park Jae-Hong \| OF Lee Byung-Kyu \| OF Jang Sung-ho \| OF Chung Soo-Keun

Manager Kim Eung-Yong \| Coach Kim In-Sik \| Coach Kang Byung-Chul \| Coach Joo Sung-No

South Korea 2006 World Baseball Classic roster

Manager In-Sik Kim

2008 Olympic Champions Baseball – South Korea

2006 World Baseball Classic All WBC Team

Catcher: Tomoya Satozaki \| First Baseman: Seung-Yeop Lee \| Second Baseman: Yulieski Gourriel \| Shortstop: Derek Jeter \| Third Baseman: Adrián Beltré \| Outfielders: Ken Griffey, Jr., Jong-Beom Lee, Ichiro Suzuki \| Designated Hitter: Yoandy Garlobo \| Pitchers: Yadel Martí, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Chan Ho Park