DataBaseball
2026
Hyun Soo Kim headshot

LF · 2017

Hyun Soo Kim

Age
29
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 2"
Weight
210 lb
Born
January 12, 1988 in Seoul, Republic of Korea
MLB debut
April 10, 2016
dbWAR
.9
2 season(s)
PA
239
AVG
.231
OBP
.307
SLG
.292
wRC+
63
100 = avg

Hyun Soo Kim is a left fielder for the Baltimore Orioles. In 2017 he hit 1 home run and knocked in 14 RBIs, notching 49 hits across 239 plate appearances in 93 games. His batting average was .231, 9.4% lower than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .307 clip and slugged .292, for an OPS of .599, 20.1% lower than the league mark of .750 — 12th of 14 on his team, and 402nd of 435 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 88.5 mph off the bat, hit 38.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 3.9% of them and made contact on 81.3% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 63 wRC+ puts his offence 37% below average. That comes to -0.6 dbWAR — -10.6 runs with the bat, -0.2 on the bases, -3.6 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2017.

wRC+63
wOBA.271
ISO.061
BB%9.2%
WAR-.6

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2017. These four terms sum to -6.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting-10.6Baserunning-0.2Position-3.6Replacement+8.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.50.4-0.61617

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2017932394911402246.231.307.292.061.2879.2%19.2%.271-10.663-0.6
2016933469262213651.302.382.420.118.34510.4%14.7%.355+9.21241.5

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2017. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP16152017.133.188.133.15443.8%
vs RHP2241984712139.237.314.303.27817.4%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2017.

Loading 162 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 153 tracked batted balls in 2017. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
3.9%
6 barrels
Exit velocity
88.5
mph average
Max exit velo
109.2
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
38.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
39.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
10.0°
average
Barrel rate3.9%
Exit velocity88.5 mph
Hard hit rate38.6%
Contact rate81.3%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2017.

.200.053.133.2508 AB.29417 AB7 AB.21428 AB.41931 AB.20010 AB.12025 AB.34626 AB.20010 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .254.

Situational hitting

How Hyun Soo Kim hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations239.231.307.292.271
Bases empty13712124111528.198.292.281.264
Runner on first5145130259.289.360.333.314
Runners on1039225013718.272.324.304.278
RISP52471201129.255.288.277.242

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2017.

Head to head

Put Hyun Soo Kim beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Hyun Soo Kim

Similar players

Nearest 2017 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.