One day in late September, before a game in San Francisco, Ha-Seong Kim considered both the near future and his distant home continent. The unveiling of another class of Gold Glove winners was a little more than a month away. It was not lost on the San Diego Padres second baseman that in all the decades of the award’s existence, no infielder born on the other side of the Pacific had gotten to hoist it.
Until, perhaps, this year.
“The whole Asian baseball community and young kids are watching me and playing that position and thinking about coming over here,” Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae. “Obviously, it’s a great personal achievement, but also I’ll be happier just to show kids in Asia that they can play infield and they can dream about coming over here. Because there’s a lot of doubts, like that Asian infielders have a low success rate in the big leagues. Just being that person to have them keep their dream, that’s the most important thing for me.”
The dream grew more vivid Sunday when a native of Bucheon, South Korea, was named the National League Gold Glove winner at the utility spot, a category that was created in 2022 to recognize the best defensive utility player in each league.
Kim is just the second Asian-born player to win a Gold Glove. The other is Seattle Mariners icon Ichiro Suzuki, a 10-time winner in right field, where Kim’s teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. also earned his first Gold Glove.
Fernando Tatis Jr. is a Gold Glove Right Fielder. pic.twitter.com/ocP4oo7Awz
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) November 6, 2023
The individual honors came after a season in which Kim and Tatis made notable position changes. Kim moved from shortstop, where he was a 2022 Gold Glove finalist, to second base to accommodate the signing of Xander Bogaerts. Tatis, the team’s starting shortstop in 2021, returned from multiple surgeries and a PED suspension as a right fielder. Both players excelled at their new assignments, even as Kim continued to supply rare versatility. Kim started 98 games at second base, 29 games at third base and 16 games at shortstop. He also was a Gold Glove finalist at second base, where the Chicago Cubs’ Nico Hoerner won the award.
“I feel like winning a Gold Glove as a utility is probably more valuable,” Kim said in September. “It means you can play multiple positions at the Gold Glove level.”
And now, it registers as a singular accomplishment. In an interview near the end of the season, Korean baseball legend Chan Ho Park described Kim as a pioneer for their home country.
“Before I came to America, we had never thought about a Korean pitcher or Korean player playing in the major leagues,” said Park, who in 1994 became the first Korean-born player to appear in the majors. “But we made it. And then we thought, ‘OK, maybe a pitcher, maybe a home run hitter — Hee-Seop Choi, Shin-Soo Choo.’ But defense? Like the infield, shortstop, second base? We never thought about it.
“Ha-Seong makes us start thinking about it: ‘Yes, we can do that, too.’”
Kim, 28, has done it since he debuted with the Padres in 2021. The former Kiwoom Heroes star struggled to adjust that season to stateside velocity and his first bench role since he was a rookie in the Korea Baseball Organization. He managed to contribute with plus defense at three infield positions. In 2022, throughout Tatis’ season-long absence, Kim stepped up as the starting shortstop. And in 2023, he cemented his place as a big league regular.
He has credited, among others, former Padres infield coach Bobby Dickerson and now-former Padres manager Bob Melvin for giving him the requisite confidence.
“He’s a pleaser, man,” Dickerson, now the Philadelphia Phillies’ infield coach, said in September. “When I say ‘pleaser,’ I mean he does not want to let people down. For you to invest in him as an organization, I’m sure, like he says, he didn’t want to let his country or anyone down. These are things that make guys great.”
The list of Asian-born major leaguers is relatively brief. The number of middle infielders among that group is even smaller, and few have experienced lasting success in the United States. Jung Ho Kang, Kim’s former Heroes teammate, recorded 6.2 Baseball Reference wins above replacement (bWAR) across two seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates before legal troubles derailed his career. Tadahito Iguchi, a one-time Padres second baseman, leads all Japanese-born infielders with 6.4 career bWAR.
Kim, in just three seasons, has compiled 12.9 bWAR. He led Padres hitters this season with 5.8 bWAR, a total that ranked 11th among all big league position players. He made significant progress at the plate — Kim, who emerged as San Diego’s primary leadoff hitter, is a finalist for a National League Silver Slugger award — but much of his value continued to come on defense.
Gold Gloves are largely determined by a vote of managers and coaches from across the majors. According to Rawlings, which sponsors the award, the SABR Defensive Index aggregates batted-ball location data and play-by-play information, and accounts for approximately 25 percent of the selection process. Beginning last year, Rawlings has selected a utility winner in each league by drawing on a specialized defensive formula and other defensive statistics.
Kim led all National League second basemen in the SABR Defensive Index. His performance in a pair of public metrics also placed him near the top: He was fifth in Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and fourth in Outs Above Average (OAA).
Ha-Seong Kim with some flair! pic.twitter.com/Nl4ay8p3f4
— MLB (@MLB) June 4, 2023
Tatis was second among all major league defenders in the SABR Defensive Index. He ranked first among right fielders in OAA. He was second in the sport in DRS, behind Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Daulton Varsho. Since DRS was introduced in 2003, only two right fielders have graded better in a single season than Tatis did this year: Suzuki in 2004, and Los Angeles Dodgers star Mookie Betts in 2016 and 2017.
For some, Tatis’ swift adjustment to the outfield was expected. The 24-year-old is a superlative athlete who has twice finished in the top five in National League MVP voting. Kim’s play in 2023, on the other hand, might be considered remarkable. As recently as two years ago, he harbored doubts about his ability to stick in the majors.
In August, one teammate suggested that Kim all along was capable of his current level.
“The guy came from being a top prospect in Korea, he’s accepted the challenge and, you know, he was always talented,” Tatis. “It’s just time to adapt and see how this works. It’s the big leagues, the hardest game in the world. But the guy has turned this year into one of the best players in the game.”
(Photo: Joe Puetz / Getty Images)
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