One of the biggest storylines surrounding the Atlanta Braves as they head into this offseason pertains to whether or not they’ll be able to convince Ha-Seong Kim to stay with the Braves — one way or another,
it seems.
Of course, we all know about the player option that Kim currently holds with the Braves after they acquired him from the Rays as a waiver claim. He had a successful final month of the season here in Atlanta, which served as a bit of a month-long recruitment visit (with the Braves also picking up the $2 million tab that he was owed from the contract he signed with Tampa Bay). Alex Anthopoulos previously stated that he’d love to have Kim back with the Braves next season and obviously it would be great for Atlanta to have their shortstop position figured out since that was definitely a big question mark for them in the past and could continue to be so in the future if they have to delve into the shortstop free agency market this offseason (which isn’t great!).
For what it’s worth, Braves beat writer Mark Bowman of MLB.com has reported that Ha-Seong Kim is expected to decline his player option and test the free agency waters and to be honest, that makes sense for Kim on multiple levels. I’m sure that all the other teams across baseball who are looking for a shortstop would have seen how he performed during September with the Braves and while Atlanta has the “incumbent’s advantage” of sorts, that won’t mean anything if another team just happens to blow Kim and his agent Scott Boras out of the water with a great offer. Should he decline his offer, he’s only doing the right thing for himself.
With that being said, that doesn’t seem like a guarantee at this particular moment. Ha-Seong Kim did an interview with Korean outlet SPOTV News and it appears as if he’s still undecided more than anything. Here’s a roughly translated quote from that article (with the outlet’s questions in bold type):
– Everyone is curious about your future. Has anything progressed?
“I don’t know. I think I’ll have to talk to my agent, and I don’t know anything about my future.”– I heard Atlanta is courting you a lot.
“There were some similar moves when we were together (in Atlanta), but I can’t say anything right now.”– How was your time with the Atlanta team?
“It was great. I enjoyed it in Tampa Bay, but I think I had more fun and enjoyed playing baseball in Atlanta. I’m sorry I kept feeling unwell and in pain in Tampa Bay.”
It was nice to see that he “had more fun” with the Braves than the Rays — not to denigrate what the Rays have going on or anything like that but it does continue to re-affirm that players usually end up having a good time in Atlanta’s organization. You’ll be hard-pressed to find former players talk badly about their time with the Braves and Ha-Seong Kim appears to be no different in that regard.
Still, “having fun” for a month doesn’t exactly mean that a player will be chomping at the bit to make a firm commitment for another 162 games or any seasons beyond that. That also could be another factor in Kim potentially testing the free agency waters: Why settle for just one year of certainty when any team could offer another multi-year deal out of the gate? That could sound bad for the Braves (especially considering that Atlanta hasn’t exactly done business all that frequently with Boras-represented clients in the past) but it’s not like they couldn’t be in the running to potentially come to a multi-year agreement with Kim, themselves.
The Braves clearly liked having Ha-Seong Kim around, the feeling is apparently mutual in that regard and the Braves badly need some certainty at the shortstop position. If Atlanta feels that strongly about fixing their shortstop issues right then and now, then Kim opting out could just mean that the Braves could just throw some more money and years his way instead of just going with a one-year player option and leaving it at that. Again, the shallow shortstop free agency market will likely play a role in dictating what both parties are going to do in this situation.
For now, I’d imagine that Ha-Song Kim opting out appears to be the most-likely scenario here but I would hope that an opt-out doesn’t mean that the Braves are completely out on him. This appears to be like too good of a match for both parties to pass up on and I’d hope that whether Kim opts-in or they come to a multi-year agreement that we haven’t seen the last of Kim in an Atlanta Braves uniform.
