New San Diego Padres infielder Ha-Seong Kim is pretty excited heading into the 2021 season. So excited, that he predicted his team will be 2021 champions.
Ha-Seong Kim has been on the San Diego Padres for a week and he’s already established himself as a fan favorite. He said that he joined the Padres because he knows this team is good enough to win the World Series.
Korean INF Ha-Seong Kim gave a thoughtful opening statement, partly in English, said MLB has “always been my dream stage,” stated his goal is “to become Rookie of the Year” and said, thru an interpreter, that he joined the Padres “because they’ll be the WS champions this year.”
— Alden González (@Alden_Gonzalez) January 6, 2021
Ha-Seong Kim is bringing it in his introductory presser. Why join a team that already had a pretty packed infield?
— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) January 6, 2021
"Because the Padres ... will become the World Series champion this year. I want to be part of a winning team, that's why I joined the San Diego Padres."
The Padres’ fanbase is already riding high. Everything came together for them during the 2020 regular season. Had it not been for devastating injuries to Dinelson Lamet and Mike Clevinger, they could have given the eventual champion Los Angeles Dodgers a tough NLDS series.
So how’d they adjust after the early postseason exit? They took advantage of a slow free agent market to bring Kim over from the KBO. Then they took advantage of two teams looking to shed payroll and acquired Blake Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young, and Yu Darvish, a 2020 NL Cy Young finalist.
The San Diego Padres front office knows the team is on the precipice of an incredible run. So while other teams around the league are pinching pennies due to the lost fan revenue in 2020, they’re leveraging their incredible farm system to add more star-level talent.
Kim saw a team with a competitive major league roster and a deep farm system and saw where they were heading. He knows that this team is built to win baseball games. And he knows they’re built to bring in any piece they need to help them achieve that goal. So even though he doesn’t have a set position in the infield, he knew San Diego was where he wanted to be.
Padres fans appreciate that mindset as much as they appreciate the talent Kim has on the field. This is a fantastic match, and Kim’s introductory press conference has solidified his status as fan-favorite before playing his first major league game.