Hyun-soo Kim
From BR Bullpen
Hyun-soo Kim (김현수)
- Bats Left, Throws Right
- Height 6' 2", Weight 214 lb.
- High School Shinil High School
- Born January 12, 1988
Hyun-soo Kim is a young Korean outfielder who helped his country win Gold in the 2008 Olympic. He is noted for his ability to get on base.
Kim was undrafted out of high school and signed with the Doosan Bears. In 2006, he was 0 for 1. The next season, the teenager batted .273/~.337/.398 as a regular. He was runner-up in KBO Rookie of the Year voting behind Tae-hoon Im. He became a star in 2008; after 86 games, he has produced at a .347/.448/.495 rate with 59 walks to 25 strikeouts.
That earned him a trip to the Olympics with South Korea, where he hit .370/.393/.444 as the starting left fielder to help them win Gold. In the round-robin, he had one of his brighter moments of the Games. He pinch-hit and singled off of Japan's Hitoki Iwase in the 9th inning to score Dong-joo Kim to put South Korea ahead 3-2; he came around to score and Korea won the game 5-3. In the preliminary phase, Kim's .421 average was 5th in the Olympics, behind Alexei Bell, Yong-kyu Lee, Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Dae-ho Lee. He also tied Masahiro Araki, Giorvis Duvergel, Nishioka, Eduardo Paret, Jong-wook Lee and Lingfeng Sun for the lead with 2 steals.
Kim was second in KBO MVP voting in 2008, with 27 of 94 votes. He was 24 votes behind Kwang-hyun Kim. He finished the 2008 KBO season with a batting line of .357/.454/.509. He led the league in average (.026 over Sung-heon Hong), was 4th in runs (83), led in doubles (34), was 5th in RBI (89), led in OBP (by .034) and was 4th in slugging. He struggled in the postseason, going 1 for 21 in the 2008 Korean Series. He joined Karim Garcia and Jong-wook Lee as the KBO Gold Glove outfielders.
The 21-year-old continued to star in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. He hit .393/.514/.500 with 7 walks in 9 games, serving as the South Korean LF. He tied Yoennis Céspedes for 4th in the tourney in hits (11) and tied Kosuke Fukudome, Carlos Delgado and Akinori Iwamura for 4th in walks. He was 3 for 3 with a walk, 2 runs and a RBI in the semifinal win over Venezuela. He made the All-Tournament team at DH, being chosen ahead of players such as Shin-soo Choo, David Ortiz, Joey Votto, Carlos Guillen, Michel Enríquez, Jorge Vázquez, Derek Jeter, Atsunori Inaba and Geovany Soto.
