In the end, the Dodgers ' final Opening Day roster decision came down to a simple calculus.
Hyeseong Kim and Alex Freeland endured flawed spring trainings. Neither was in line for regular playing time in the big leagues to begin the season. So, as the team debated which of them to keep as the last position player on their Opening Day roster , the question became more about who could benefit from everyday at-bats down in Triple-A.
The answer, the club announced Sunday, was Kim, who was optioned to Triple-A to start this new year.
Freeland, meanwhile, was informed he had made the big-league team, where he will start the season platooning at second base alongside Miguel Rojas .
Dodgers infielder Alex Freeland is slated to start the season on the big-league roster. Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
"It was probably the toughest decision of the spring," manager Dave Roberts said. "There's no doubt that Hyeseong at some point is gonna come help us out. But I think the driver, as far as at the outset, was giving Hyeseong an opportunity to play every day, play all over the diamond … whereas here, he just wouldn't have the runway to do that, to play more frequently."
The move certainly qualified as a mild surprise.
While the switch-hitting Freeland showed better plate discipline this spring, drawing 11 walks and striking out just 11 times, he still hit a woeful .116 in Cactus League play –– even worse than the .190 average he posted in 29 games as a rookie last year.
Kim's surface-level stat line was better in camp, posting a .407 average in the limited action he saw before and after playing for Team South Korea in the World Baseball Classic.
However, his performance during the WBC was concerning, going just 1 for 12 with six strikeouts while facing lower-quality pitching. And once Kim returned from the tournament, Roberts noted that his swing looked "out of sync," with the left-handed hitter failing to maintain the mechanical progress he had made with Dodgers coaches back at the start of the spring .
"I'm not blind to the fact that Alex didn't have a surface line of production in spring, and Hyeseong did," Roberts said.
But, he added, "I just think [Kim] needs to play more. I really do. At-bats here in the States are gonna help him be a big-leaguer for quite some time."
This has been the ongoing challenge with Kim, 27, ever since he signed a three-year, $12.5 million contract with the Dodgers coming out of South Korea last year.
He plays excellent defense, especially at second base. He can also kick to the outfield, possessing positional versatility that Freeland lacks.
But he was optioned to the minor leagues at the start of last season, with the club acknowledging his swing needed serious work. And though he hit well in his initial taste of big-league action, batting .383 in his first 37 MLB games, opposing pitchers eventually identified his weaknesses, especially against spin at the bottom of the strike zone. From the start of July on, he hit only .175. In the playoffs, his only action came as a pinch-runner.
The Dodgers sent Hyeseong Kim to Triple-A to start the season. AP
Kim's swing improved over the winter, part of which he spent in Los Angeles working with Dodgers coaches. Early in camp, he seemed to be making further strides with his mechanics, simplifying his lower-body movements while developing a more consistent bat path at the plate.
Leaving for the WBC, however, ultimately stalled that progress.
Being away from the Dodgers' staff, Roberts acknowledged, "was a little bit of a detriment."
Freeland, on the other hand, stayed in camp and honed in on the areas he struggled with last season –– first and foremost, getting back to the disciplined approach that helped the 24-year-old emerge as one of the club's top hitting prospects in recent years.
"You can definitely look at spring training and look at the stats and say, 'Yeah, he had a terrible spring training,'" Freeland said. "But in my eyes, I worked on certain things, and I achieved certain goals. It obviously wasn't to my standards or anything like that. But there's good in there."
In time, both players will continue battling for big-league at-bats. Once Tommy Edman completes his recovery from offseason ankle surgery –– which is expected to keep him sidelined for at least the opening several weeks of the season –– he will slot in as the team's everyday second baseman.
But for now, Freeland will get the opportunity to prove himself at the MLB level, while Kim will try to keep making improvements down in Triple-A.
"With Alex, with what he's done in Triple-A already, he's really played well there," Roberts said. "There's nothing left for him to prove there … So again, it's really not an indictment on Hyeseong at all. And like I said, we think the world of him as a player, as a teammate, and we expect him to help us at some point."
Just not now. Not quite yet.
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