Pittsburgh Pirates: Five Left-Handed Pitching Free Agent Targets

Kwang-Hyun Kim

Another starting pitching option the Pirates could pursue is Kwang-Hyun Kim. Kim was one of the KBO’s better pitchers for 12 seasons. After the 2019 season, Kim came over stateside on a two-year deal with the division rival St. Louis Cardinals. Kim became a quality pitcher throughout the last 2 seasons, making him a solid candidate for the Pittsburgh Pirates to pursue.

Through 145.2 innings with the Cardinals, Kim has a 2.97 ERA and 1.22 WHIP, albeit with a solid though unimpressive 4.22 FIP. Kim is not a strikeout pitcher. He has a strikeout rate of just 17.2%. Though he does have a solid 8.4% walk rate and .93 HR/9. Not bad numbers by any means. His 48.1% ground ball rate goes well with his above-average hard hit and exit velocity numbers.

This past season Kim pitched 106.2 innings, having a 3.46 ERA, 4.34 FIP, and 1.28 WHIP. Again, nothing overly outstanding, but nothing bad either. He only had a 17.8% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate. Plus his 1.01 HR/9 wasn’t fantastic either. On the plus side, he had a healthy 47.4% ground ball rate while being in the top 68th percentile of exit velocity and top 70th percentile of hard-hit rate.

Kim is your typical soft-tossing, ground ball kind of pitcher. He doesn’t have overpowering velocity, or an extremely high spin rate to get a bunch of strikeouts. Though so far, he’s been really good at it. But the biggest concern will be how he would handle the transition from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Pirates with that approach. Kim had a 4.85 SIERA, 4.70 xFIP, and 5.27 DRA. The Cards were the league leaders in team DRS, 5th in UZR/150, 2nd in range runs above average, and had 7 players with at least 3 Outs Above Average (3 with 10+ OAA). A combination of Nolan Arenado, Paul DeJong, Paul Goldschmidt, Tyler O’neill, Harrison Bader, Dylan Carlson, Edmundo Sosa, and Tommy Edman with Yadier Molina behind the dish is probably as good as it can get defensively.

While the overall defense of the Pittsburgh Pirate was not awful this past season, and should see some improvement now without Gregory Polanco, the DH returning so Colin Moran doesn’t have to spend every day at first base, Travis Swaggerty likely playing a good amount of 2022 at the major league level, and some other plus defenders in the upper minors, it wasn’t anything to write home about. A guy like Kim may not have the same results as he did with an infield of potential Gold Glove winners. Still, while it may not be to the elite-degree the Cardinals had, the Pirate defense is far from awful.

But the Pirates can offer Kim something that the Cards cannot. That being a 100% chance at a starting rotation spot. The Cards used left-hander as a partial swingman. 28 of his 35 total appearances were out of the starting rotation. He ended 2021 in the bullpen. Though Kim is a bit older, with 2022 being his age-33 campaign, I don’t see a major reason why not to make a push for the Korean pitcher.