Hyeseong Kim did not hide his frustration after a season that never quite got off the ground for him with the Dodgers.
After spending much of the year in the minors and appearing in only 43 games during Los Angeles’ 100-win campaign, the utility man called 2026 “a disappointing year” and was even more blunt about what that limited role meant to him.
“It seems like it was a disappointing year,” Kim said. “It is the most disappointing thing I’ve experienced while playing baseball.
“The fact that I was only in the Major Leagues for about a month-that’s what hurts the most. I want to play in the Major Leagues for a long time, but I wasn’t able to make that happen.”
Kim started the season in Triple-A after losing a battle with Alex Freeland for one of the Dodgers’ infield jobs. His stay there didn’t last long, though, because Mookie Betts went down with an oblique injury in the third series of the year, opening a door back to the big leagues.
Once he got the call, Kim didn’t exactly fade into the background. In those 43 games, he hit one homer, drove in 11 runs and finished with a .651 OPS.
That was down from his .699 mark through 71 games with the club in 2025. The bat showed some progress in one area, too: both his strikeout rate and walk rate improved in 2026, which had been a focus for the Dodgers early on.
Still, that wasn’t enough to keep him in the majors. Los Angeles optioned him back to Triple-A near the end of May, and he never made it back to the regular-season roster.
Even so, the Dodgers still found room for him in October. Kim was included on the NLDS roster against the Braves because of his speed, with the club valuing him as an impact bench option and its fastest runner. He appeared in only one game before being left off the roster for the NLCS against the Brewers.
Before the postseason, manager Dave Roberts laid out exactly what Kim needs to do to carve out a larger role.
“For Hyeseong, it’s the at-bat consistency,” Roberts said. “I don’t think his offense has been consistent.
For us, the at-bat quality-for example-that Alex Freeland is giving us has been very good. For Hyeseong, just trying to find something consistent and perform consistently, and to be quite frank he just hasn’t been as consistent as he can be.
But if he can get more consistent with a bat, then he can be a big piece.”
That inconsistency showed up in the shape of Kim’s season. He opened hot, carrying a batting average just under .300 by the end of April and putting up a .760 OPS with seven walks and only 13 strikeouts. But May was a rougher stretch: he batted .226, managed just three hits over his final eight games of the month, and struck out 18 times against five walks.
If Kim can smooth out those swings at the plate, the Dodgers may have a reason to give him a much bigger opportunity next year - especially after Miguel Rojas’ retirement.
In Other News...
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Dodgers Face A Painful Offseason Decision With Key Arms At Risk
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The list includes arms and clubhouse mainstays such as Kris Bubic, Brusdar Graterol, Eric Lauer, Evan Phillips, Blake Treinen and Alex Vesia, along with position players Enrique Hernandez and Miguel Rojas, plus Tarik Skubal as part of the broader market picture. Some of those decisions are straightforward in theory and messy in practice, especially when recent performance and career stage point in different directions. For a team built to contend every year, the challenge now is deciding how much turnover it can stomach without weakening the group that has to go back and chase another title. [Read more 🡒]