Baseball’s Best Kept Secret

Two championships, two gold(en) gloves, a career .307 batting average, three 30 home run seasons, and a Most Valuable Player award. This kind of profile isn’t anything to sneeze at. However, this player is not Albert Pujols, Mookie Betts, Ivan Rodriguez, Dustin Pedroia, or one of the many other MLB greats with similar professional production. You might know Major League Baseball’s superstar studs, but here’s what you might not know: the Korean Baseball Organization has a star worth watching of their own: the Doosan Bears’ very own Jae-hwan Kim.

With a career OPS of .935, Jae-hwan is among the world’s finest hitters. Among MLB players, that would rank fourth among all active players. His .307 batting average would rank third among all current MLBers. His on-base percentage of .388 would rank fifth, as would his slugging percentage. While he has won two of the KBO’s Golden Glove Awards, there are only 8 active outfielders in Major League Baseball have won multiple Rawlings Gold Glove Awards.

The only active players near him are Joey Votto, Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Paul Goldschmidt.

on Jae-hwan Kim’s Production

Now, before you come for my head, I understand that the quality of competition is vastly different between Major League Baseball and the Korean Baseball Organization. I am not saying he would put up numbers anywhere near this crazy in Major League Baseball. The only active players near him are Joey Votto, Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Paul Goldschmidt. That is too exclusive of a club, even for a player of Jae-hwan Kim’s talent level. However, that does not mean that Kim is short of MLB-caliber. There are multiple Korean greats to make the transition to Major League Baseball, and while there is a statistical drop-off, these players can still be viable major leaguers. While the most famous names are pitchers, such as Hyun-jin Ryu, Chan-ho Park, and Byung-hyun Kim, there are some successful MLB hitters who got their start in the KBO, including Shin-soo Choo, Ji-man Choi, and Jung-ho Kang, among others. Per Baseball America, the Korean Baseball Organization is between Minor League Baseball’s AA and AAA in terms of quality of competition. It isn’t exactly farfetched to say that a guy who hits .334/.405/.657 with 44 home runs (like Kim posted in 2018) in AA or AAA would be mashing in the majors as well.

This isn’t exclusively a ‘Jae-hwan Kim is awesome’ article. I’d also like to dive into why he dominates pitchers the way he does. I’ll tell you what, though. It’s hard to watch him play and not want to just write ‘Jae-hwan Kim is awesome’. I mean, just watch this swing.

https://twitter.com/sung_minkim/status/1040029179729723392

The baseball fan in me just wants to ogle at the beauty of that swing (and the smooth celebration). To provide a little analysis, his short stride leads him to rotate his hips quickly, plant the inside of his back elbow into his hips, and let his body do all the work, allowing him to crush pitches placed over the plate or on the outside. If I were foolishly attempting to get this man out, I would put the ball inside, as his biggest weakness as a hitter is getting his hands inside quickly to pull a fastball. However, if you miss by even an inch, he’s either watching a ball pass, or doing what he did in this clip here. Sadly, if he attempted to make an MLB transition at this stage in his career, he would be far from his power-hitting prime. He went from 37, 35, and 44 home runs between 2016 and 2018 to hitting only 15 in 2019, though he is on pace for about 24 over a full season so far in 2020 (11 in 62 games). Prime power grade (compared to MLB, not KBO): 65, current power grade: 50.

The thing with a swing that sweet, though, is that you don’t need immense power to be a great hitter. You need a great eye, and the ability to consistently plant the barrel of the bat on the ball. Kim is guilty on all charges. He is drawing walks in 15.9% of his plate appearances this season, a new career high for a player with a career 11.6% walk rate. While he’s hitting for fewer extra bases, he is doing the most important thing a baseball player can do: getting on. He’s reaching base this season at a .390 clip, and hitting .286. He is far from an easy out at any level of the game. Once again, it is a shame we didn’t get to see this hit tool in his prime here in the United States, his ability to reach base would likely still impress American audiences if exposed to his game. Prime hit grade: 65, current hit grade: 55.

This section is one that explains why when Doosan posted Kim, he went unsigned by Major League Baseball. He is relegated to a designated hitter role at this stage in his baseball career. The left fielder that twice brought in Golden Glove Awards is a large minus in the field, and definitely could not do anything but DH in the MLB. In his prime, he could’ve been average to above average in Major League Baseball. Today, he would be one of the worst left fielders in baseball. His glove earned its gild not due to superior range, but rather from reading the ball well off the bat and having a good enough throwing arm in left. Prime fielding grade: 50, current fielding grade: 30.

Kim’s positioning in left field frankly confuses me. Until 2015, Jae-hwan served at least part-time as a catcher. While there is limited English-language information on his time as a catcher, he was not exactly a stalwart behind the plate, not catching a single player attempting to steal a base in a KBO game. Still, though, one might be led to believe that a former catcher would at least have the arm to man right field. This is reminiscent of another catcher-turned-left fielder Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber famously moved off catcher not due to arm limitations, but rather poor framing and handling. He actually had a great arm (and still does) so why post him in left instead of right? Well, if you look over at right, you’ll find Jason Heyward. He has won 5 Rawlings Gold Glove Awards in right field, including 2016, Schwarber’s first full MLB season. Well, I found my answer for Jae-hwan Kim by looking in the same place: right field. Byeong-heon Min manned right field in Doosan for much of Kim’s career, and did a good job of it. As I can confirm from my suspicions based on his former position, some film, and his high outfield assist numbers, Jae-hwan had an arm that provided good value to the Bears. He posted 8 outfield assists in 2018, a career high that I couldn’t leave out, a number that over an MLB-length season would’ve hit the 10 posted by MLB Gold Glovers Cody Bellinger and Mookie Betts last season. Prime arm grade: 60, current arm grade: 45.

While he went from good defender to bad defender, he went from little speed to no speed. With 26 steals across 772 games, he wasn’t exactly a 5-tool player, though with only 7 times caught stealing his career success rate of 78.8% on the basepaths is worth mentioning, though it is clear that stealing bases was not his primary virtue. Though he was a quality defender in his prime, that was more thanks to making good reads off the bat and having a solid glove, as opposed to the range one might associate with a quality outfielder nowadays. The greatest extent to which he used his speed was collecting extra bases on balls that hit the playing field, though doubles and triples are far from his bread and butter. While he has put together three 30 double seasons, doubles and triples account for under a quarter of his career hits, and that rate is a paltry 13.6% so far this season. Safe to say, this was the least fun section to write. Prime speed grade: 30, current speed grade: 20.

Due to international player posting rules, the majority of American audiences have missed out on their chance to witness this titan live for what has been an incredibly successful career in Korea. This summer, with Major League Baseball’s hiatus until July 24th, 2020, ESPN has treated US baseball fans to live KBO games, exposing millions more to Jae-hwan Kim’s greatness. I only hope some desperate team takes a shot at him, because with production like this, he deserves a chance to prove himself on the world’s biggest stage. After all, when you give a big stage to a player like Jae-Hwan Kim, he does not disappoint.