The San Diego Padres signed Jurickson Profar to a three-year deal worth $21 million last offseason so it didn’t make a ton of sense when A.J. Preller went out and brought in another utility bench player in Ha-seong Kim.
Kim came over from the KBO where he hit 133 home runs and had a batting average just under .300. However, it took him some time to adjust to major league velocity. In the first month of the 2021 season, Kim struck out in 28% of his plate appearances while hitting one home run.
It became clear that Kim wasn’t going to provide much power to the Padres lineup and he didn’t see much playing time in the last three months of the season.