Kab-yong Jin

Kab-Yong Jin

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 198 lb.

• School Korea University
• High School Pusan High School

• Born May 8, 1974 in Busan South Korea

Catcher Kab-Yong Jin of the Samsung Lions has played for South Korea in the 1994 Baseball World Cup, 1995 Intercontinental Cup, 1996 Olympics and 2006 World Baseball Classic.

Jin batted .389/.500/.556 while splitting catching duties with Ki-moon Choi for the Silver Medalist South Koreans in the 1994 World Cup. In the 1995 Intercontinental Cup, he was just 3 for 19 with a walk and a homer but did throw out five of six attempted base-stealers.

In the 1996 Olympics, Jin hit .346/?/.500 with 3 runs and 3 RBI for a Korean team that struggled to a 1-6 finish. Jin debuted professionally in 1997 with the OB Bears and hit .242/.306/.310 in 95 games. In 1998, he batted .269/.306/.356. Going to the Samsung Lions in a trade in July of 1999, he only put up a .212/.308/.265 line in 68 contests. The next season, the 26-year-old backstop batted .273/.333/.401 as he started to make an impression and he hit three homers on July 6.

In 2001, Jin batted .306/.361/.465 as he continued to develop into a star; his OBP was third in the Korea Baseball Organization. He produced at a .281/.347/.465 clip in 2002 with 29 doubles, 18 homers and 86 RBI. He was 8th in the KBO in RBI.

Kab-Yong hit .290/.356/.490 with 21 home runs for the 2003 Lions. On April 18, he hammered a grand slam and he added a walk-off home run on August 19. He played for South Korea in the 2003 Asian Championship, when they finished a disappointing third. In 2004, Jin batted .278/.344/.487 with a career-high 24 homers. He was 5th in the KBO in circuit clouts and 9th in slugging.

During the 2005 season, Jin had a sudden decline in power production, only hitting 6 home runs. He hit .288/.365/.389 as the rest of his game remained intact. In the 2006 World Baseball Classic, he was just 1 for 11 with three strikeouts as one of the least productive hitters on the successful South Korean entry. His 2006 line was basically the same as 2005 - .288/.343/.399 with 6 HR. He finished 10th in the KBO in average. On August 17, he hit his 100th career homer

Through 2006, his career batting line was .277/.342/.422 in 1,062 games. He has hit 100 HR in 3,342 AB and driven in 472 runs.

Jin hit a disappointing .246/.344/.320 in 2007 with only 62 runs produced in 122 games. In the 2008 Final Olympic Qualification Tournament, he batted .235/.333/.353 as South Korea's starting catcher and threw out both runners who tried to steal against him as South Korea clinched a return to the Olympics after a hiatus in 2004. In the 2008 Olympics, Jin backed up Min-ho Kang and went 1 for 10 with a walk.

Sources: Worldbaseballclassic.com, Samsung Lions website, Korean wikipedia for school history, 1997 Baseball Almanac, 2008 Olympics