SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Harrison Bader is the new center fielder for the San Francisco Giants, so that means Jung Hoo Lee will be moving to right field.
And the Korean star is apparently all in for the switch after speaking with new manager Tony Vitello and general manager Zack Minasian. Bader, too, can't wait to get going with his new teammates this spring and insists constant communication will be they key to everyone getting on the same page in a hurry.
Bader played left field last year for the first time in his nine-year career.
“We have talked to Jung Hoo, Tony’s talked to him, Zack spoke with him earlier,” President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey said Friday. “Jung Hoo is great. Also, there’s an understanding on our end and to Jung Hoo that there’s a chance that Jung Hoo can still be getting reps in center field, but our plan is to have Bader play in center field.”
Bader finalized his $20.5 million, two-year contract — and the Giants believe with his addition they will have a far-improved defensive outfield going forward. Lee will soon have a chance to become more comfortable with San Francisco's unique right-field wall with a nearly identical one at one of the club's spring training sites in Arizona. Heliot Ramos returns in left field.
The 31-year-old Bader batted .277 with 17 home runs, 54 RBIs and a .796 OPS in 146 combined games with Minnesota and Philadelphia last season — setting career highs in all those categories. He is eager to steal more bases.
“Basically going into the free agency for the third time this year I really just wanted to find a home,” Bader said. "And I think a number of factors that play into what a baseball player would identify as a home is winning culture, a really strong city, a culture in a city that is really centered around baseball, winning culture, good food, good energy. I just ultimately picked San Francisco because the opportunity was just fantastic to go out there and play my game. You always want to be an everyday player.”
This will be the furthest West he has played — and his new “home” features challenges such as wind, mist and wild bounces.
“The outfield defensively can certainly be tricky,” Bader said, noting he plans to familiarize himself with it as quickly as possible.
Posey said the Giants had been aiming to acquire Bader all offseason.
“He’s a great fit for us, he’s a guy who’s going to play hard, play fearless in the outfield,” Posey said.
Lee is still expected to be the center fielder for Korea in the World Baseball Classic, something the Giants support him doing.
The 27-year-old Lee signed a $113 million, six-year contract with the Giants in December 2023. He missed most of his rookie season in 2024 after dislocating his left shoulder crashing into an outfield wall and needing season-ending surgery.
This past year, when the Giants missed the playoffs for the fourth straight season and fired manager Bob Melvin, Lee batted .266 with eight home runs and 55 RBIs with 10 stolen bases over 150 games — 144 of those being starts in center field.
“Jung Hoo has played right field before, I think he’s a pretty instinctual player, and expecting him to transition over there very easily,” Minasian said. “But we’ll try to get some familiarity on that Papago back field and then he’ll get some reps out there during the spring.”
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FILE - Philadelphia Phillies' Harrison Bader runs during a baseball game Sept. 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - San Francisco Giants' Jung Hoo Lee hits a single during the third inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals, Sept. 6, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons.
The measure had long been sought by the United States-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodríguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.
Rodríguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency.
“May this law serve to heal the wounds left by the political confrontation fueled by violence and extremism,” she added in the pretaped televised event. “May it serve to redirect justice in our country, and may it serve to redirect coexistence among Venezuelans.”
Rodríguez also announced the shutdown of Helicoide, a prison in Caracas where torture and other human rights abuses have been repeatedly documented by independent organizations. The facility, she said, will be transformed into a sports, social and cultural center for police and surrounding neighborhoods.
Rodríguez made her announcement before some of the officials that former prisoners and human rights watchdogs have accused of ordering the abuses committed at Helicoide and other detention facilities.
Relatives of some prisoners livestreamed Rodríguez’s speech on a phone as they gathered outside Helicoide. Some cried. Many chanted “Freedom! Freedom!”
“God is good. God heard us,” Johana Chirinos, a prisoner’s aunt, said as tears rolled down her face.
Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado in a statement said the announced actions were not taken “voluntarily, but rather in response to pressure from the US government.” She also noted that people have been detained for their political activities from anywhere between a month and 23 years.
“The regime’s repressive apparatus is brutal and has responded to the numerous criminal forces that answer to this regime, and it is all that remains,” Machado said. “When repression disappears and fear is lost, it will be the end of tyranny.”
The Venezuelan-based prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal estimates that 711 people are in detention facilities across the South American country for their political activities. Of those, 183 have been sentenced.
The government did not release the text of the bill on Friday, leaving unclear the specific criteria that will be used to determine who qualifies for amnesty.
Rodríguez said the “general amnesty law” will cover the “entire period of political violence from 1999 to the present.” She also explained that people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, corruption or human rights violations will not qualify for relief.
Rodríguez’s government earlier this month had announced plans to release a significant number of prisoners in a goodwill gesture, but relatives of those detained have condemned the slow pace of the releases.
“A general amnesty is welcome as long as its elements and conditions include all of civil society, without discrimination, that it does not become a cloak of impunity, and that it contributes to dismantling the repressive apparatus of political persecution,” Alfredo Romero, president of Foro Penal, said on social media.
The organization has tallied 302 releases since Jan. 8, when National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez announced that the government would free a significant number of prisoners.
The human rights group Provea in a statement called out the lack of transparency and “trickle” pace of prisoner releases over the past few weeks and underscored that while the freeing of those still detained “is urgent, the announcement of an amnesty should not be conceived, under any circumstances, as a pardon or act of clemency on the part of the State.”
“We recall that these people were arbitrarily imprisoned for exercising rights protected by international human rights instruments, the National Constitution, and Venezuelan laws,” the organization said.
Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez speaks under a framed image of former President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, during a ceremony marking the opening of the new judicial year at the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez speaks during a ceremony marking the opening of the new judicial year at the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
