Korean Star Jung Ho Kang May Be Much Better Than Advertised

Be warned that we're about to drift into Spring Training Overreaction Territory. Because the spring exhibition season is hardly the most telling proving grounds, the nice things we're about to say Jung Ho Kang could certainly be rendered moot before long.

That said, here goes nothing: Kang could end up being pretty good, you guys.

Admittedly, the look we've gotten at the 27-year-old shortstop from South Korea this spring has been brief. Also admittedly, this is an awkward time to be singing his praises. Kang collected an 0-fer in Tuesday's contest against the Tampa Bay Rays, dropping his spring average to .182 in five games.

Before that, however, Kang did have a 1.083 OPS through four games. That was only 115 points off the 1.198 OPS he posted in his 40-homer campaign with the Nexen Heroes of the Korean Baseball Organization in 2014. Clearly, his offensive talent was translating to Major League Baseball just fine!

Year	G	PA	HR	OPS
2012	124	519	25	.973
2013	126	532	22	.876
2014	117	501	40	1.198

That sentiment was written with my tongue firmly in my cheek, of course. But if nothing else, Kang's early dominance is an excuse for a fresh look at how his talent will translate to MLB. And on that front, there's suddenly more cause for optimism than there was before.

After all, early reports on Kang skewed skeptical. Ben Badler of Baseball America wrote that scouts didn't see an everyday player when they looked at Kang. Rather than a power-hitting middle infielder, ESPN.com's Keith Law wrote that some scouts saw "an unathletic corner guy whose power won't translate outside of Korea."

Such opinions likely weren't the consensus in MLB front offices, but they might as well have been. When the Pirates preceded an $11 million contract by winning Kang's negotiating rights with only a $5 million bid, FanGraphs' Jeff Sullivan wrote:

"

It’s clear from the winning bid how Kang is perceived, league-wide. If teams believed he were a starter, the bid would’ve been at least triple this. No hitter has ever come over from the KBO, and baseball teams don’t seem to think any are good enough to make an impact.

"

In so many words, clubs just didn't see many reasons to be optimistic about Kang. But as early as it is, one wonders how many are thinking differently these days.

USA TODAY Sports

Let's talk about Kang's power—for starters, specifically why there was skepticism about it translating from 40-homer power in the KBO to something even remotely close in MLB.

Probably the biggest reason had to do with the KBO itself. Kang generated some huge numbers in 2014, but it's an important note that the league as a whole was generating huge offensive numbers. In general, juiced numbers in a juiced environment must always be taken with a grain of salt.

To boot, Kang also had the luxury of playing home games at Nexen's Mokdong Stadium. According to the Korea Joongang Daily, one scout referred to it as "the KBO’s most hitter-friendly ballpark.”

Lastly, there might have been a concern that Kang's power was one-note power. If you watch one of his more popular highlight reels, you'll see a bunch of dingers. None of them, however, landed to the right of center field. Whether Kang's power would apply to all fields was a legit question.

That is, until Kang provided an answer in his first spring game. In only his second at-bat, he stepped up and did this to Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Marco Estrada:

That was quite a clout. Isn't that right, Clint Hurdle?

"He barreled the ball up big time," the Pirates skipper told MLB.com's Tom Singer. "He got a ball up in the zone and covered it well, all the way out of the park."

Yes, indeed. To clear the right-center field fence by that much, Kang's dinger must have traveled well over 400 feet. That's some impressive power.

Also impressive is how Kang sent that ball on his journey. He took a fastball on the inner half of the plate and let it travel deep into the hitting zone before uncorking and driving it the other way.

It takes serious bat speed and, well, plain ol' talent for a righty hitter to do that. For perspective, BaseballSavant.com has Josh Donaldson, Giancarlo Stanton and Matt Kemp at the top of the list of righty hitters who hit the most opposite-field dingers on inside pitches in 2014. No slouches, them.

This is to say that Kang's first big league homer makes Badler's projection that he would show 15-20 home run power in an everyday role sound conservative. Even in a park as big as PNC Park, his real potential might be more like 25-30 home run power.

That doesn't take care of the entire list of concerns, however. Power is only worth something if it also comes with consistency, and that leads us to maybe the biggest question of all where Kang is concerned.

Can he be a consistent MLB hitter with those swing mechanics?

You only need to re-watch the above video to get the idea that Kang has a big leg kick, but seeing it from the front doesn't really do it justice. You really need to see it from the side, like so:

Image courtesy of MLB Advanced Media via MLB.com.

That's as exaggerated as a leg kick can get. And though Kang's ability to remain balanced is commendable, it still understandably led to some hand-wringing. B/R's Mike Rosenbaum voiced concerns about Kang being too easily beaten by good velocity, and Law also saw the potential for "timing issues." 

If we're being honest, this concern is still standing. And it could stay that way for quite a while, as we'll need a lot more time to see if Kang can make some necessary adjustments.

But now for the good news: The more we hear about Kang's swing, the more it sounds like adjustments are actually right up his alley.

For starters, Dan Farnsworth of FanGraphs broke down how Kang's huge 2014 season was largely the result of him toning down his "violent and over-rotational" hip movement that his swing previously featured. The result is a swing that doesn't have as much wasted movement you'd think. He's also shown he can adjust what's essentially a low-ball swing to hit high pitches, which is a very valuable talent to have at a time when pitchers are doing good work both up and down in the zone.

One of the comps Farnsworth offered in looking at Kang's swing mechanics is Miguel Cabrera. That's not a bad comp as far as comps go, and it turns out it's not the only way to compare Kang to Cabrera.

Here's ESPN.com's Buster Olney with a very interesting note about Kang's leg kick:

"

What the Pirates have seen is that Kang will vary the timing of his leg kick so that he will be less predictable to opposing pitchers and catchers, and they believe he'll be able to hit different types of pitches.

The best hitter who does that sort of thing, varying the timing of his leg kick, is the aforementioned Miguel Cabrera, who will sometimes use a bigger leg kick or sometimes go with a quicker kick and use mostly his hands in his swing, depending on whether he thinks the opposing pitcher is going to throw a fastball or a breaking ball...

"

If this is true, then Kang is more than just a big-picture adjustment guy. He can also adjust on a pitch-to-pitch basis, which is never a bad talent to have.

So, Kang may not be the power-only player he's tended to be portrayed as. It's highly unlikely he's going to repeat his .356 average from 2014, but he may well be capable of backing up his legit power with a league-average (or better) on-base percentage. That, indeed, would make him a darn good hitter.

That would just leave the concern about Kang's defense, and that one's easier to overlook. If his defense isn't downplayed by his bat, Miles Wray of FanGraphs argued it could easily be downplayed by Pittsburgh's knack for positioning its fielders. With them, Kang need not be Andrelton Simmons.

Time is going to tell. All we really know about Kang now is that he was a beast in Korea, that the Pirates have made a modest $16 million bet on his potential, and that his first MLB spring training has been hit-or-miss through five games. Beyond that, all we can do for now is guess.

But if you're going to play the Kang guessing game, it's OK to guess big. The more we learn about him, the better he looks.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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