8.5B for Slugger if He Stays in Japan

Will he go on to join the U.S. Major League Baseball (MLB), or stay with the Japanese team Yomiuri?

The answer, it seems, lies only with Lee Seung-yeop (age 30, at Tokyo Yomiuri Giants) himself, if even he knows what he will decide.

With the end of the season just over a month away, the Japanese media are running many articles speculating on where the Korean baseball player will be heading in the future.

Sports Nippon, a sports daily paper, predicted Tuesday, “If given the same conditions, Lee Seung-yeop will leave Yomiuri to play in MLB.”

“Yomiuri is considering offering higher incentives to hold onto Lee,” the newspaper reported, quoting an official in the Yomiuri Group.

In fact just this month, scouting agents from Arizona, Pittsburgh and the Chicago Cubs visited Japan to study Lee’s performance.

On the same day, Junichi Sports reported, “Giants’ coach Tatsunori Hara himself is persuading Lee Seung-yeop to stay with the team.”

“Lee will surely agree when he considers what the team feels,” said Hara at an interview with reporters on Tuesday before the Giants left for Kumamoto to play the Hiroshima Carp. What he called how “the team feels” is doubtless a plea for Lee to stay on.

The Japanese media believe if Lee stays with his present team, he will be offered one billion yen, or around 8.5 billion won, over three years.

What will Lee’s final choice be? “I will give serious thought and then decide, after hearing the offers from Major League when the season ends,” is his tactful answer for now.

uni@donga.com