Lee relishes familiar role
Used to being underdog, OF keeps grinding
JUPITER – Braxton Lee is an underdog. He knows he is an underdog. He has always been an underdog.
But now, as a 24-year-old center fielder in his first major league spring training, Lee is an underdog on the cusp of making it to the bigs.
“I don’t like it, but I embrace it,” Lee said one recent morning inside the Miami Marlins’ spring clubhouse. “It’s a part of me now. It’s not anything that’s new. I’m OK with it. It’ll probably be that way the rest of my life.”
“At 40, I’ll still be an underdog at something,” he continued, breaking into a laugh. “You go play a scratch tournament with your boys. ‘Oh, Braxton sucks, he’s going to come in last.’ And then I win.”
Serially underrated, Lee is again this spring. He was the first in a wave of prospects to join the Marlins via recent trades — 20 minor leaguers in exchange for eight major league regulars — but in a camp with outfield prospects Lewis Brinson, Monte Harrison and Magneuris Sierra, Lee isn’t quite as highly regarded.
But don’t interpret that as meaning the Marlins don’t like him. They do. Manager Don Mattingly called Lee a “premium defender” and said he is similar to New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, who Mattingly saw as a Yankees coach when Gardner was a minor leaguer in the mid-2000s. Gardner wasn’t a blue-chipper, but has been in the majors for a decade.
Lee is 5-foot-10, 193 pounds. Gardner is listed at 5-11, 195. Lee is a fast, slap hitter who draws rave reviews for his defensive abilities. Gardner is similar, and in his 30s has developed some pop, too, hitting 21 homers last year.
“[Lee] doesn’t really get overlooked, I just forget his name a lot,” said Mattingly, who has forgotten Lee’s name on several occasions in the past week. “He’s a guy that’s got a cannon. He’s not a guy that’s overlooked. He’s going to get plenty of at-bats and plenty of looks out there.”
Lee has a shot at making the Opening Day roster, though the chances he starts with Triple-A New Orleans increased with the Marlins’ recent signing of Cameron Maybin. If he indeed ends up in the minors, well, it would just be more of the same for Lee, who has had to prove his abilities at every level.
That’s largely as a result of his diminutive stature. Lee was a four-year varsity player in high school in Picayune, Miss., but didn’t even weigh 100 pounds as a freshman. He remembers seeing upperclassman bench press more than twice his weight and couldn’t believe it.
“I can barely swing the lightest bat that we had,” Lee said. “I was having to bench the 45-pound bar with two fives on each side. That was all I could do. That was for my reps. My max was 75 pounds.
“I saw seniors benching the 225 [pounds] and I was like, ‘That’s the strongest guy in the world! I’ve never seen anybody do that.’ That was just me being a little kid though. I had no idea.”
At a mere 145 pounds his last year of high school, Lee didn’t get any looks from Division 1 colleges, despite hitting nearly .500.
“No conversations or anything,” he said.
Instead, Lee went to nearby Pearl River Community College and did more of the same, batting .362 as a freshman and .409 as a sophomore, stealing a combined 65 bases at an 89 percent success rate.
It wasn’t until he ran a 6.3-second 60-yard dash at a scout day that Ole Miss came calling. After one season with the Rebels — .281 average, .375 OBP, 30 steals — the Tampa Bay Rays picked Lee in the 12th round of the 2014 draft.
As a new pro, Lee kept on eye on external prospect lists, mostly to see where guys he played with and against ranked. He was never really included.
“After one year, I started saying, I don’t care where I’m at,” Lee said. “I don’t care if I’m the last guy in the minor leagues on your list. I’m just going to go out and play, because the prospect list doesn’t mean anything. It’s just for people to see and ooh and aah at. Ever since then, I’ve thought the same way.”
After a wild 2017 — Lee started with the Rays, got traded to the Marlins, won the Double-A Southern League batting title, started in the AFL, got married, returned to AFL and was added to the 40-man roster — Lee finally earned some recognition. MLB Pipeline put him at No. 17 on its list of the Marlins’ top 30 prospects.