Padres’ Kim Ha-seong becomes 1st S. Korean player to win Gold Glove

Kim Ha-seong of the San Diego Padres has become the first South Korean player to win a Gold Glove in Major League Baseball (MLB).

Kim won the National League Gold Glove at the utility spot, as MLB announced the winners Sunday (U.S. local time).

MLB added the utility category last year, recognizing players with defensive versatility.

For his monumental award, Kim beat out Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tommy Edman of the St. Louis Cardinals, a half-Korean player who was Kim’s double play partner at the World Baseball Classic in March. Edman is the 2021 NL Gold Glove winner at second base, while Betts has won six Gold Gloves in right field.

Kim was nominated for the Gold Glove at shortstop in 2022 and was a model of infield versatility in 2023.

After the Padres signed a big-ticket free agent shortstop, Xander Bogaerts, over the offseason, Kim became a primary second baseman with 106 games there, while also logging 32 games at third base and 20 games at shortstop.

Kim combined for 16 defensive runs saved (DRS) — 10 at second, and three each at third and short. His 10 DRS at second base ranked behind only the co-leaders in the NL at the position, Nico Hoerner of the Chicago Cubs and Brice Turang of the Milwaukee Brewers (12 each).

Hoerner won the Gold Glove at second base over Kim and Bryson Stott of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Kim was among the league leaders in Outs Above Average (OAA), which measures how many outs a player has saved based on the difficulty of plays. He accumulated +7 OAA as a second baseman to tie for sixth in the NL and had +10 OAA overall.

Per Baseball Reference, Kim ranked seventh overall in the NL with a 2.1 in defensive wins above replacement (WAR).

“I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the fans and people in baseball who have shown tremendous love and support throughout this past season,” Kim said in a video message posted on the YouTube channel for his agency Summit Management. “Most importantly, I am extremely pleased to have been able to promote Korean baseball in the major leagues and be a positive motivation for young Korean players aspiring to join the major leagues in the future.”

The Gold Glove winners were determined by votes from 30 MLB managers and up to six coaches from each team. They voted from a pool of players in their league but not those from their own team. These votes comprised 75 percent of the selection total, with the Defensive Index by the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) counting for the other 25 percent.

Kim is only the second South Korean to even be a finalist for a Gold Glove, following Choo Shin-soo, who was up for the American League Gold Glove in right field in 2012.