Hye-seong Kim

Hye-seong Kim (김혜성)

Bats Left, Throws Right
Height 5' 10", Weight 171 lb.
High School Dongsan High School
Debut May 3, 2025

Born January 27, 1999 in Goyang South Korea

Biographical Information[edit]

Hye-seong Kim had played in the KBO and the Olympics before signing a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers and making his debut a month into the 2025 season.

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. ^[1] 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. ^[2] 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. ^[3]

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 in spite 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. On January 3, 2025, it was announced that he had come to an agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers on a three-year deal worth $12.5 million, with two option years at $5 million each, resulting in a posting fee of $2 million to be paid to his former team (which could rise if the options are exercised). He was expected to be the main back-up to SS Mookie Betts and 2B Gavin Lux, although the Dodgers' plans were still in flux. He started the season in the minors, with the AAA Oklahoma City Comets, where he hit .252 in 28 games, with 5 homers and 19 RBIs. He was called up to Los Angeles on May 3rd when Tommy Edman was injured and made his debut that same day against the Atlanta Braves, coming in in the 9th inning as a defensive replacement at second base for Chris Taylor, who moved to left field. He did not have a fielding chance and did not come to bat either. His first hit came two days later when he started at second against the Miami Marlins and went 2 for 4, and he hit his first major league homer on May 14th, against Gunnar Hoglund of The Athletics in a 9-3 win. He also put together a string of reaching base in nine straight plate appearances, a feat that helped convince the Dodgers to keep him on the roster; they released long-time fixture Chris Taylor in order to do so. He ended up playing 71 games for L.A., hitting .280 with 3 homers and 17 RBIs. He was 13 for 14 in stolen base attempts and his OPS+ was 95. He was on the Dodgers' postseason roster, although he saw relatively little action. He did score a key run as a pinch-runner in Game 4 of the Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies on October 9th. He ran for Tommy Edman in the bottom of the 11th inning with the score tied at 1-1, and came to score the run that won the game and the series when Andy Pages hit a comebacker to the mound with the bases loaded and two out, and P Orion Kerkering threw the ball wildly while attempting to cut him down at the plate. His only other appearance came in Game 7 of the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays on November 1st, another memorable affair. After the Dodgers had taken a 5-4 lead on Will Smith's homer off Shane Bieber in the top of the 11th, he came in to play second base in the bottom of the inning. He got one putout, retiring Isiah Kiner-Falefa at first base on a sacrifice bunt for the first out, but when Alejandro Kirk hit a grounder to SS Mookie Betts, he was ready to turn the double play, but Mookie waived him off and did it all by himself, stepping on the bag and throwing to first to end the game. But Hye-seong was already on the field for the victory celebrations.

Heading into the 2026 season, he was competing for the starting second base job with the Dodgers with Edman expected to miss the beginning of the season after undergoing surgery on his right ankle. He seemed to have the inside track to win the job, but one complicating factor was that he had been named to the South Korean national team for the 2026 World Baseball Classic which would keep him away from the Dodgers' camp, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, for a while.

Notable Achievements[edit]

Won one World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2025

Sources[edit]

Related Sites[edit]

[1] Korean Wikipedia

[2] .

[3] 2020 Olympics

[1]

[2]

[3]

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Hye-seong Kim

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