Hye-seong Kim

Hye-seong Kim (김혜성)

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 171 lb.
• High School Dongsan High School

• Born January 27, 1999 in Goyang South Korea

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Hye-seong Kim has played in the KBO and the Olympics.

Kim played for South Korea in the 2016 Asian Junior Championship, then was taken by the Nexen Heroes in the first round of the 2017 KBO draft. He was 3 for 16 with two doubles and a walk as a rookie in 2017, backing up Ha-seong Kim at SS and Geon-chang Seo at 2B. For the 2018 Heroes, he became a stater and hit .270/.328/.367 with 6 triples, 31 steals (in 37 tries) and 79 runs, fielding .977 at 2B as Seo missed most of the year with injury. He was third in the league in swipes (behind Hae-min Park and Roger Bernadina) and tied for third in triples. He lost KBO Rookie of the Year to Baek-ho Kang.

When Seo returned in 2019, the Goyang native split second base with him and also saw significant time at short behind Ha-seong Kim. He hit .276/.332/.362 with 7 triples and was 20-for-23 in steal attempts for the team, now the Kiwoom Heroes. He tied Hae-min Park and Jong-wook Ko for 4th in three-baggers and missed the top ten in swipes by two. Kiwoom made the 2019 Korean Series but lost to the Doosan Bears.

Still only 21 years old, he produced at a .285/.345/.399 clip in 2020 with 80 runs, 6 triples and 25 steals (in 33 tries). He hit for the cycle one game. He again tied for 4th in triples and was third in steals (behind Woo-jun Shim and Hae-min Park). He was used all over - 67 games at 2B (still splitting time with Seo), 50 games at SS (backing up Ha-seong Kim) and 44 in LF.

When Ha-seong Kim left for the majors, Hye-seong Kim took over the shortstop job; his two predecessors had now gone to MLB (Jung-ho Kang before Ha-seong Kim). He made South Korea's squad for the Tokyo Olympics. He started at 2B and hit 9th in their opener, with Ji-hwan Oh manning short. Kim grounded out against Jake Fishman in the second then chased Fishman with a 4th-inning single. Eui-ji Yang pinch-hit for him in the 6th.

Following the 2024 season, Kim announced that he had asked to be posted in order to sign with a team in Major League Baseball. Playing second base for the Heroes, he was coming off a season in which he had hit .326 with 11 homers and 30 steals, and at age 25 inspite of having already completed eight seasons at the highest level in Korea, he was just starting his prime, making him that much more attractive to a potential suitor

Further Reading

• Brian Murphy: "Hyeseong Kim, standout KBO second baseman, expects to be posted soon", mlb.com, November 26, 2024. [1]
• Brian Murphy: "Hyeseong Kim, standout KBO infielder, to be posted Wednesday", mlb.com, December 3, 2024. [2]