St. Louis Cardinals Rumors: Cardinals are interested in Ha-Seong Kim

As the St. Louis Cardinals look to upgrade their offense this winter, they have reportedly been linked to Korean shortstop Ha-Seong Kim.

Fans may not love it, but the St. Louis Cardinals are going to be bargain-bin shopping this winter for ways to improve their offense. As much fun as it would be to see the team go after the biggest names out there, that isn’t realistic for the current economic climate of baseball.

However, earlier this offseason it was reported that one player would be available from a market the Cardinals have been very active in recently. Ha-Seong Kim, a 25-year-old shortstop from Korea, has been posted.

Before the news that Kim had been officially posted but was rumored to be available, this player seemed like the perfect name for the Cardinals to go after. It made too much sense.

Now, as the January 1 deadline for Kim to sign with an MLB team nears, the Cardinals have indeed been linked to Kim as one of the final teams interested.

It would be par for the course for the Padres to come in and ruin things for everyone else, fresh off their trade for Rays’ ace Blake Snell. However, nothing is official until the physical is done.

In Kim, the Cardinals would be getting a young but experienced star of the KBO. Though Kim is just 25, he has played in the KBO since he was 18. Excluding his 60-game debut back in 2014, Kim has played at least 129 games of the KBO’s 144-game schedule. In that time, he has never had an OPS below .832, with his best season coming in 2020 where he hit for a slash line of .306/.397/.523 with 30 homers and 109 RBI. 2020 was the third year in his career where Kim has driven in over 100 runs.

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Defensively, Kim can play third, shortstop, or second, so there is plenty of flexibility for any team interested in signing him.

While the KBO may translate as Triple-A competition when comparing it to the MLB, evaluators have to admire Kim’s consistency and health over his seven-year KBO career. Numbers like Kim’s would normally mean a huge contract, but most reports have his salary staying below $10M a year for between four and six years.

There is an inherent risk in signing a player to a deal of that size that has never played on U.S. soil, signing Korean players has been one way the Cardinals have added great talent on a budget in the past few years.

Kim is different than the majority of other stars from the KBO that come to the MLB in that he is just 25. This has driven up his price some, but if the Cardinals are really serious about improving the offense, adding a second Kim to the roster seems like a great idea.

As was mentioned above, Kim must sign by January 1 if he wants to play in the MLB in 2021. Because of that, it is expected that Kim will make his choice imminently on where to sign.