Rotoman:
Now that he’s an Oriole, what would your big price be on Hyun-Soo Kim?
We don’t have a lot of priors for Korean hitters to join the major leagues.
Kim is interesting, too, because he’s coming off a career year power wise. He had some 20+ homer years early in his career, but from 2011-2014 he hit between seven and 17 before last year’s 28. Is this a trend, a blip, or something in between? We can only guess.
What we know is that Kim makes a ton of contact, has good strikezone judgement, and some power. We also know that he started spring training making 23 straight outs, which is a bad start but probably not a strong warning against his success.
My projection for Kim, in the Patton $ Software, has been a mess. I just boosted him to 475 AB and changed his R and RBI distribution to reflect the fact that he’s likely to lead off. If he leads off all season he’ll get far more than 475 AB, but the lesser amount reflect the possibility that those 23 straight outs actually meant something.
I have Kim at $11 this year. He could be a bust, or if he hits the way he did in Korea, with a bit less power and less contact, he could earn $22, or anywhere in between.
Sincerely,
