Landmines and Landing Spots for Ha-Seong Kim

On August 18 in Colorado, Ha-Seong Kim led off first base, then dived back to beat a pickoff attempt. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder, and that was the last time we saw him play in 2024. After a failed rehab attempt, Kim underwent surgery in October, and he won’t be ready to play again until sometime between April and June. Just as uncertain: Where exactly Kim will be suiting up when he returns. There’s no doubt about his skill. Over the past four years, Kim has spent time at second, short, and third, and neither DRS nor FRV has ever rated him as below average at any of those spots. He needed a year to adjust on offense after arriving from the KBO in 2021, but over the past three seasons, he’s run a 106 wRC+. That ranks 13th among shortstops, and over the same period, his 10.5 WAR ranks 11th.

Kim entered free agency after both he and the Padres declined their ends of a mutual option, and he came in at ninth on our Top 50 Free Agents. According to the projections, he’ll command a four- or five-year deal with an AAV in the neighborhood of $19 million. However, the shoulder injury could cost him as much as half of the 2025 season, and it makes for a tough needle to thread. He’s got to sign with a team that needs a solid infielder, but not badly enough to need one right away. Moreover, a shoulder injury is especially scary for Kim, whose arm strength is an important part of his overall value and who already possesses below-average power at the plate. For that reason, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Kim get a pillow contract: Ben Clemens proposed two years with an opt-out. Back in November, Mark Feinsand reported that Kim had generated “lots of interest,” and wrote about the possibility that he’d be among the first free agents off the board. However, it’s now late January, and if you cruise through our Depth Charts, you’ll notice that there just don’t seem to be many good landing spots for Kim. Let us begin our litanies.

If you start by looking at Kim solely as a shortstop, it’s rough going because the position is loaded. Our Depth Charts show just eight teams projected for under 3.0 WAR at short, and just three teams below 2.0. In 2024, four of the top-10 spots in position player WAR belonged to shortstops: Bobby Witt Jr., Gunnar Henderson, Francisco Lindor, and Elly De La Cruz. The top 30 also included Willy Adames, Corey Seager, Mookie Betts, Carlos Correa, and Dansby Swanson. Even after a down year, Trea Turner belongs on any list of superstar shortstops, as does Xander Bogaerts, who took over for Kim in San Diego. And just like that, we can scratch 11 teams off our list.

Below the superstar tier, we’ve got young stars like Zach Neto, Anthony Volpe, CJ Abrams, Masyn Winn, Jeremy Peña, and Xavier Edwards. Somewhere close to that tier is another group of young, cost-controlled players in Geraldo Perdomo, Ezequiel Tovar, and Brayan Rocchio. The A’s have prospect Jacob Wilson seemingly ready to take over and projected for a massive 3.7 WAR, and they also appear to have met their enough-to-avoid-a-grievance payroll threshold. The Blue Jays are in a tricky position, with Bo Bichette entering a contract year after a disastrous 2024 campaign, but it’s hard to imagine they’ll decide to move on from him now. They were rumored to be interested in Kim as a second baseman back in November, but they’ve since traded for Andrés Giménez to fill that role. The Mariners are in the market for solid position players, but they have J.P. Crawford cemented at shortstop. That knocks off 12 more teams.

After that, we can scratch off the Rays, Pirates, and White Sox, just because it would be a real surprise to see them spend the kind of money it would take to land Kim. If you’re keeping score at home, that leaves just four teams that could maybe, possibly sign Kim to play shortstop: the Braves, Brewers, Tigers, and Red Sox. If we look at the possibility of Kim playing second or third base, we can welcome four teams back into the conversation: the Yankees, Mariners, Giants, and Kim’s former employer, the Padres. That gets us up to eight teams, but each has its own complications. Let’s dive in.

The Braves make plenty of sense, as shortstop is one of their biggest weaknesses. Incumbent Orlando Arcia is entering the last year of his contract, and Kim is clearly a superior player. However, Kim is represented by Scott Boras, and the Braves generally avoid Boras clients.

With Willy Adames gone, the Brewers need someone to man shortstop. RosterResource currently has Joey Ortiz penciled in to start at short, but that leaves them with a hole at third base, where Ortiz played last season. Second baseman Brice Turang is an excellent fielder who could conceivably handle shortstop if needed, but moving him there would open up a spot at second. The good news is Kim is a fit for all three positions, though as long as his shoulder is healthy and allows him to make all the necessary throws, he is probably better suited to play shortstop than the other two infielders. Moreover, Kim’s contact-oriented, speed-and-defense game would certainly make him a lovely fit in Milwaukee. This just comes down to whether the Brewers would consider spending the money to get him. We estimate that Kim will get somewhere between $18.4 and $20 million per year, which would make him the second-highest-paid player in Milwaukee.

This next one is really unlikely, but it’s also interesting. The Red Sox have Trevor Story signed at shortstop through 2027, and they’ve got two highly rated middle infield prospects, Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer. However, Story has been unable to stay healthy or to produce during his time in Boston. At second base, indications are that Campbell, Vaughn Grissom, and David Hamilton will be in competition to break camp with the starting job. All of this is to say that although the Red Sox are gearing up to contend, their middle infield is in need of some stability. A versatile defender like Kim would certainly be an upgrade over what the Red Sox currently have at the big league level. It’s possible that Campbell and Mayer would make him superfluous, but as of now, the middle infield is a big question mark.

If Kim is going to stay at short, Detroit is the clearest fit. Our Depth Charts currently show Trey Sweeney, Javier Báez, and Zach McKinstry getting the team’s shortstop reps, and Kim would represent a significant upgrade over all three. Báez has run a combined wRC+ of 70 over the past three seasons, and although he’s under contract for another three seasons, the Tigers simply can’t afford to keep playing him if they hope to keep winning. For a non-shortstop, McKinstry graded out surprisingly well at the position last season, but you have to think the Tigers would rather have a true shortstop playing there. Rookie Trey Sweeney manned short during the playoffs, but the projections see him as somewhere between average and replacement level next season. Back in December, Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press said on the Days of Roar podcast (which deserves a few listens for its name alone) that the Tigers had interest in Kim, but that was before they signed second baseman Gleyber Torres to a one-year deal. With Torres now at the keystone, adding Kim to play shortstop would represent a huge gain up the middle for a Tigers team that’s on the rise.

However, it’s unclear if shortstop is the primary position that Detroit is targeting. For example, Alex Bregman has been linked to the Tigers as a possible upgrade at third base, especially because of his connection to manager A.J. Hinch. Right now, Detroit is expected to start 50-FV prospect Jace Jung at third, but if the team doesn’t want to bank on him just yet, Bregman would be the better short-term option. Of course, as things stand, Bregman isn’t interested in short-term deals, and the Tigers already have Jung, their fourth-ranked prospect on Eric Longenhagen’s updated 2024 list and no. 83 overall, as their third baseman of the future, so it might not make sense for them to splurge here. Conversely, there’s also the question of whether the Tigers plan to keep adding at all or if they’ll stop with Torres. Their payroll sits at an estimated $111 million, which is higher than last year’s $104 million but lower than the figures they ran in 2023 ($121 million) and 2022 ($130 million). There should be some room in the budget, though it’s hard to gauge how much higher they’d be willing to go. Kim would be a smart midpoint between the two extremes; he won’t cost them too much in money or long-term commitment, he’d be an improvement over what they have at shortstop now, and he’d be a fallback option to play third in case Jung isn’t quite ready for an everyday role. Moreover, he’d give them security at second base over the next few years if Torres leaves in free agency after this season. Kim makes a lot of sense for Detroit, but the organization has enough other options in the infield that could keep this pairing from happening.

The Padres know Kim well, and at the beginning of the offseason, GM A.J. Preller said the team would “love to bring him back.” Between Luis Arraez, Jake Cronenworth, Bogaerts, and Manny Machado, the Padres have enough infielders to hold things down, but they probably would be happy to return Cronenworth to first and Arraez to DH. The mutual option for the 2025 season that both sides declined was for $8 million, and while Kim will cost more than that, it’s unclear what San Diego’s budget situation looks like. The Padres reportedly made an offer for Hyeseong Kim, so they would seem to be in the market for middle infield help, but thus far, Martín Maldonado’s minor league deal represents their biggest free agent signing.

Kim also makes sense at second base in Seattle, as the Mariners are projected to get 2.3 and 2.4 WAR from the second and third base positions, respectively. However, much like Milwaukee, if the Mariners were to sign Kim for anything approaching what he’s worth, he would be making more than everyone except Julio Rodríguez and Luis Castillo. As things stand right now, we estimate the Mariners to have $145 million payroll, almost exactly the same as the $144 million mark they hit last season and the $140 million one they ran in 2023. We shouldn’t expect them to go much, if any, higher than where they are now.

The Yankees would be a very good fit for Kim. Right now, our Depth Charts show them with 3.4 projected wins from the second base position, but that’s because we have Jazz Chisholm Jr. slotted in there, with DJ LeMahieu and Oswaldo Cabrera handling third. The two of them are projected to combine for just 1.5 WAR at the position, which simply isn’t good enough for a team that just won the pennant and is looking to do so again this year. Adding Kim would allow Chisholm return to third base, which he played quite well last season despite having zero previous experience at the position, with LeMahieu and Cabrera holding down the fort there until Kim is healthy. The Yankees are also currently about $19 million under their 2024 payroll, so they have enough space to sign Kim without exceeding last year’s spending.

Our last possibility is the Giants, and they also make a whole lot of sense. They were reportedly in on Torres before he signed with Detroit, so we know they’re looking for help at second base, and we have their 2025 payroll at $25 million under their 2024 mark. Tyler Fitzgerald probably can’t sustain the excellent, largely BABIP-fueled numbers he put up last season, but he should still make an excellent stopgap until Kim is ready to take over at second base. It would certainly be interesting to see Kim leave Petco Park to play his home games in San Francisco, where Oracle Park’s spacious outfield should help his doubles power play up.

OK, so we’re a little more than 2,000 words in, and we have eight possible fits for Kim. For most, it’s simply a question of money. Are the Brewers, Mariners, or Tigers willing to blow by the payroll they ran last year? Are the Yankees willing to match theirs? Do the Braves think they need an upgrade at short, and if they do, are they willing to finally deal with Boras and pay a free agent what he’s worth? The Padres’ situation has more history, and the drama in the owner’s suite adds another layer of complications. As for the Giants, it just comes down to whether the new front office regime thinks Kim would be the best allocation of their resources. Kim is a great, versatile player, and there are few teams that he wouldn’t improve. All the same, there are very few teams for whom signing him would represent a simple decision.