PHOENIX -- White Sox catcher Korey Lee espoused a principle earlier in camp that's pretty widely accepted in the baseball scouting community, but might hit fans -- especially those who just suffered through a 121-loss season -- oddly depending on the situation.
"There's a lot of value in just being average," Lee said.
It's not exactly a motivational phrase to frame on the wall. But then again, maybe it is.
In FanGraphs prospect coverage, when we put a 50 (average) grade on someone's defense, that's a high confidence evaluation that said player can stick at their current position. When it's a 50 overall grade, it means they're an everyday player, which has more star-level moments that the number might suggest. If Will Venable navigates the White Sox to an 81-81 season (average), it would not only win him Manager of the Year, but it might be time to worry about him getting hired away.
In a sport that's all about exploiting opponents' weaknesses, average is the absence of exploitable deficiency.
For Lee, coming off a first full season in the majors that started out hot and eventually sank to replacement-level production, there are still defined strengths that would shine brighter if the skills around them matured to average. He's an objectively elite thrower -- both in pure arm talent and also mechanics -- who produced the best pop times in the sport last season. Average blocking and framing performances would immediately make him a valuable defender at the most valuable defensive position, and his clearly plus athleticism fuels optimism for improvement.
"He's done a great job this spring whether it's blocking, receiving, throwing, just slowing things down and staying within himself and knowing his natural ability is off the charts and that's going to take him a long way," said catching coach Drew Butera.
In other cases, average provides a platform for other skills to shine. Statcast puts Lee's raw foot speed as league average -- which is well above-average for a catcher -- but he's better described as "just fast enough to be dangerous," since Lee's feel and gusto for taking the extra base whenever possible made him this roster's highest rated returning baserunner from last year's team.
Similarly, Lee earned plus raw power grades as a prospect, had a 110 mph maximum exit velocity (solid average) in his first full big league season last year, and hit 12 home runs in fewer than 400 plate appearances. In an offensive season where his total line (.210/.244/.347) would suggest little went right after a hot start, Lee demonstrated an above-average feel for lifting and elevating his hard contact, a pretty clear ability to drive thigh-high pitches on his inner half, and the strength to make it hurt when the opposition makes the mistake of giving him something in his kill zone.
Coming off such a year with two top-100 catching prospects lingering behind him would suggest the Lee's hold on a big league job is on borrowed time, despite still being a 26-year-old former first round pick himself. Matt Thaiss' strong Cactus League performance suggests that competition for playing time isn't just a future concern either. But at the end of another strong offensive spring (.393/.414/.571) punctuated by plenty of appearances of the truly special basestealing suppression weapon welded to his right shoulder, Lee cuts an image of someone who has worked to trim the fat from around a skill set that could provide value from the catching position.
"If it's in the strike zone, I feel l can make quality contact, and like you said, when I make quality contact the ball goes pretty far, or at least hard," Lee said. "It's just staying in the ground, trusting my eyes and then just being athletic. If I'm in the ground and I make an unathletic move, then it tells me not to swing. That's the name of the game right now."
By staying in the ground, Lee is referring to the force he generates from driving his feet into the batter's box dirt as he strides into his swing. Paul DeJong spoke at times last year of being cautious of not "popping out" of having his weight set into his heels, because when he did, he felt less balanced, less capable of shutting down his swing when he recognized a pitch was tailing out of the strike zone. Lee has taken the concept a step further, eliminating his leg kick in favor of staying planted in his feet throughout his swing, and making his decisions figuratively and literally more grounded.
"For the guys who have a really high swing rate like Korey did last year, we look at the best hitters in the league and obviously guys look at Juan Soto," said director of hitting Ryan Fuller. "And if you look at [Soto's] hit map, it's really tight to being both in the zone but also [to] where he slugs and does damage. So you show guys their swing [map] and it's the entire zone and outside of the zone, they understand the more we can shrink it, better things are going to happen.
"He's made a great swing change, getting a little bit wider, less movement. It gives him the ability to see pitches a little bit deeper rather than lunging forward. It goes hand-in-hand."
Lee is part of a crop of players that has latched onto using the team's new Trajekt pitching machine to practice game-speed swing decisions, to the extent that Fuller says the company told him the White Sox as a team have logged the third-most hours on the device this spring, despite the fact that plenty of other organizations own multiple machines. And in turn, Lee is part of a crop of players seemingly at the tail end of their window to prove themselves in a White Sox uniform -- Andrew Vaughn, Lenyn Sosa come to mind as others -- yet are also at the tip of the spear as the team tries to demonstrate a new capability to get more out of their talent.
When it comes to talent, a quick glimpse of Lee uncorking a throw to second, running first-to-third, or pouncing on a slider that doesn't quite get home to the glove side, shows that he has plenty. And in a spring surrounded by competition that made it very important to show what he was capable of, Lee has made it worth wondering if he could get his weaknesses up to average.
"I'm just trying to be consistent," Lee said. "This entire time, this entire spring, I've just been seeing the type of player I can be in the year and then hammering it out, and trying to be consistent as possible. I'm remind myself that I do these things every day and continuing to hold that standard to myself."
