Infielder Hyeseong Kim, who stars for the Korea Baseball Organization’s Kiwoom Heroes, has hired CAA Baseball to represent him ahead of his expected move to Major League Baseball in the upcoming offseason, reports Jeeho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. (Kim’s name is commonly written as Kim Hye-Seong or Hye-Seong Kim, but Yoo further notes via X that CAA specifically informed him the infielder will go by Hyeseong Kim if he indeed moves to North American ball.)
Kim, who’ll turn 26 next January, is old enough and has enough experience in a major foreign league to be considered a “professional” under Major League Baseball’s international standards. He’ll be exempt from international amateur free-agent bonus pools and thus able to sign a major league contract for any length and dollar amount with an interested team.
The former double-play partner of current Padres infielder Ha-Seong Kim, the younger Kim is a lifetime .301/.361/.398 hitter in 876 games with the KBO’s Heroes. One of the primary knocks on his MLB outlook throughout his pro career has been a lack of power, but he’s begun to change that narrative in his age-25 campaign. The lefty-swinging Kim has appeared in 50 games and taken 224 plate appearances this year but has already set a new career-high with eight home runs. (He’d previously hit seven homers in two different seasons, including 2023.) Overall, Kim is slashing .309/.366/.471 this season — his fourth consecutive season with a .300 or better average.
Kim has also picked up seven doubles and a triple this season in addition to going 15-for-16 in stolen bases. The 6.7% walk rate Kim has posted so far in 2024 is a career-low — perhaps a sign of a more aggressive approach as he tries to showcase for MLB teams, speculatively speaking — but his minuscule 9.8% walk rate is also the lowest of his career. Kim has dropped his strikeout rate in every season of his pro career, beginning with a 25.2% mark back in 2018. He’s now seen as a hitter with plus contact skills, well above-average speed — he’s 195-for-226 (86.3%) in career stolen base attempts — and a strong glove in the middle infield.
Prior to the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser ranked Kim ninth among the top-ten MLB prospects for fans to track (landing behind current big leaguers Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jung Hoo Lee and Yariel Rodriguez). Glaser called Kim a plus defender at second base (and a capable defender at short) with a “preternatural feel for contact,” good pitch recognition and the ability to catch up to good velocity. At the very least, he could profile as a utilityman with high-end speed and contact skills, though it should come as little surprise if there are clubs who view him as a potential regular at second base. Given his age, Kim should find big league interest — particularly if he can continue his newfound power output.
CAA most famously represents Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani but is also one of the industry’s largest firms, representing dozens of clients, including high-profile names like Willy Adames, Sandy Alcantara, Corbin Carroll, Jack Flaherty, Max Fried, Lucas Giolito, Jon Gray, Josh Hader, J.T. Realmuto and Trea Turner — among many others (as can be seen in MLBTR’s Agency Database).
