The Braves have claimed infielder Ha-Seong Kim off waivers from the Rays, according to announcements from both clubs. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the claim prior to the official announcements. Atlanta transferred Austin Riley to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot. Riley is done for the season following core surgery.
It wasn’t previously reported that Kim was on waivers, but it seems the Rays quietly put him out there to try to shed his contract. Atlanta obliged, so the Rays will get out from under that deal. Tampa signed him to a two-year, $29MM pact in the winter. He is making $13MM this year, with just under $2MM left to be paid out. The second year is a $16MM player option.
That deal was the Rays betting on Kim being able to play at his usual level after shoulder surgery finished his 2024 campaign. Over the 2022 through 2024 seasons with the Padres, Kim had slashed .250/.336/.385 for a 106 wRC+. He had stolen 72 bases in that span and received strong grades for his defense at second base, third base and shortstop. FanGraphs credited him with 10.5 wins above replacement for that three-year span.
With the surgery, he was expected to be on the injured list to start 2025, which dampened his market. Some argued he was trending towards a nine-figure deal before he got hurt. Instead, he opted for the short-term, opt-out structure. Ideally, it would have worked great for both sides. If Kim had bounced back to his previous levels of performance, he could have taken the shortstop job in Tampa and then opted out. At that point, the Rays could have given him a qualifying offer and received compensation as he returned to the open market in search of a larger guarantee.
It has not played out that way. He was initially reinstated from the IL in early July. Since then, he has twice gone back on the IL due to back problems. Around the IL stints, he has played in 24 games and produced a measly .214/.290/.321 line.
Given that performance and the injury absences, it’s possible that Kim is trending towards triggering his player option. That would have put $16MM on Tampa’s books for next year. That’s not a massive sum and the Rays have very little committed to next year’s club, but they are also dealing with plenty of uncertainty.
Due to the hurricane damage to Tropicana Field, they have had to move to George Steinbrenner Field, normally a minor league facility. That move has undoubtedly led to a lot of unforeseen costs and presumably less revenue than usual. Work is still being done to get The Trop ready for 2026 and it’s unclear how that will play out. On top of all that, the franchise is actively being sold and it’s unclear what sort of payroll the new owners will give the front office as they focus on building a new stadium.
It seems they preferred to let Kim go and save some money as opposed to keeping him around and hoping for better results next year. They are 5.5 games out of a playoff spot. They are not totally buried but are likely happy to save the remainder of the money, due to those big-picture questions. They will use the remainder of the regular season to continue giving reps to shortstop prospect Carson Williams. He was promoted when Kim’s most recent IL stint started just over a week ago. Williams has big questions about his penchant for strikeouts but he clearly has power and is considered a strong defender.
Atlanta, however, is in a very different situation. They normally run one of the larger payrolls in the league. They came into 2025 seemingly hoping to duck under the competitive balance tax. Back in February, chairman Terry McGuirk said the club still had some powder dry for in-season moves.
This year has turned into a nightmare season for the club. Due to several injuries and a PED suspension for Jurickson Profar, they fell behind their competitors and were never able to recover. They currently have a 62-75 record and are 11 games back of a playoff spot.
President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos has been using that dry powder to try to start working on the club’s 2026 comeback season. He acquired Tyler Kinley from the Rockies ahead of the deadline and claimed Jake Fraley off waivers from the Reds. Kinley is making $3MM this year and has a $5MM club option for next year. Fraley is making $3.125MM and will be due a raise via arbitration for 2026, his final season of club control.
Claiming Kim is a similar move but with larger numbers. As mentioned, Kim is making $13MM this year and will make $16MM next year. It’s theoretically possible that Kim gets hot down the stretch and opts out. That would make this claim go for naught, but the club would only lose a bit of money in that scenario. Presumably, they are hoping Kim decides to trigger his option and stay, so it seems they think $16MM is a fine price for betting on a bounceback next year.
It’s an interesting gambit for their middle infield, a situation that MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently took a close look at, in a post for Front Office subscribers. Atlanta has had Nick Allen at shortstop this year. He’s a strong defender but is essentially the worst hitter in the majors by a noticeable margin. Among guys with at least 400 plate appearances this year, Allen’s 53 wRC+ is dead last. Ke’Bryan Hayes is second-last on that list, with a 67 wRC+. Getting another shortstop and bumping Allen into a bench role seemed like a key thing on the to-do list for next year.
However, the offseason options weren’t going to be great. Bo Bichette is going to be the top free agent but Atlanta hasn’t really spent a lot in free agency lately. Under Anthopoulos, their biggest expenditure on the open market has been $65MM for Marcell Ozuna. With Bichette possibly trending towards something in the $150-200MM range, it didn’t seem like Atlanta would be the favorite to land him. Trading for someone like Trevor Story or Javier Báez may have been possible but it’s unclear if their respective clubs would make them available and they come with concerns of their own.
Rather than wait around and deal with the offseason uncertainty, Atlanta seemingly preferred to simply grab Kim now. That adds $16MM to next year’s books but they have some financial flexibility opening up. Ozuna and Raisel Iglesias are both impending free agents. Each of them individually are making $16MM this year, the same salary that Kim is set to make next year, assuming he doesn’t return to free agency.
Rosenthal notes that Kim is ready to come off the IL. That means Atlanta can use the final few weeks of the season to get a look at him. It seems they are hoping that Kim looks good but decides to trigger his option, therefore solving their shortstop question for next season.
In addition to this claim, the Rays announced that right-hander Kevin Kelly has been recalled and outfielder Richie Palacios reinstated from the 60-day injured list. Those are their two September call-up moves, with Palacios taking the 40-man spot vacated by Kim.
Photo courtesy of Robert Edwards, Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
Interesting. When you have Vidal Brujan as your starting SS, you look anywhere.
16M player option for 2026….apologies for the double post.
The dumpster diving has already begun for AA. No harm in scooping him up but this is telegraphing the off-season that’s only a few weeks away for the Braves smh…please spare me this is the year ‘we shop in any aisle’ narrative again
@braveshomer — I get it, but when that aisle is Bo Bichette at Swanson-like money and not much else, I don’t mind a little variety. This is not a Nick Allen-like pick-up. And because Kim has played GG 2B, as well, he could be a safety net from Albies — if they do happen to link with Bichette (highly doubtful, esp after this).
@braveshomer: There isn’t much to be had in the shortstop aisle this off season. Bichette probably won’t be a SS much longer and the contract he’ll be seeking will be too expensive for a 2Bman. No thanks on him anyway. Put Kim in the “there’s no such thing as a bad 1 year contract” if he exercises his player option.
You were one of the morons begging for Kim all offseason. You get your wish and you complain? Pick a different team to cheer for.
Regret that I can only rec this comment once Sid.
@sidbream…I never once begged for Kim? Unless you’re referencing someone else but it definitely wasn’t me….That being said I don’t hate the pickup
@braveshomer: I thought he was talking about 2029Braves/Rebuild 2025 (same guy.)
Narrative aside, Kim is a pretty good and effective SS for a year and in 27 the Braves will have a home grown SS ready to go. My vote is Gil but others could be there. This is a decent shrewd move.
@Braves83: One year stopgap. If he can stay healthy enough to play 120-140 games, he’ll be worth that deal. Only needs to reach 2 WAR or a bit better to be equal value.
Wait, hold up. We DFA’d Kim? When did that happen?
He wasn’t DFAd, he was put on irrevocable waivers instead of outright waivers, that way they could keep him if no one claimed him.
Jeez, I missed that news. Last I heard he was getting close to coming back off the IL making Williams’ spot tenuous. I had no idea the Rays did this. Kind of bummed, I liked Kim.
There was no news to miss: the waiver wire is not public and only reported on when leaked. This claim is the only reason we know he was put on waivers at all.
so you’d rather give starts to a guy with limited upside and is always injured over your top prospect who has started well, in a year you are not going to the playoffs?
Nice guy but he couldn’t stay healthy and at $15 mil or whatever, it made sense with Williams on board now.
Kim isn’t limited to SS. He could’ve rotated at 3B, SS, 2B, and maybe even 1B given his brief experience there in the KBO. But for a Rays team with limited payroll, his salary was probably prohibitive for a utility guy.
The article mentions it wasn’t previously reported, so you didn’t miss anything! I understand the disappointment, Kim is a nice player.
“Jeez I missed..I liked Kim”…I like Kim too, but not at the $15M/yr level. I was shocked that the Rays signed him to that deal.
The Tampa Rays have a rather magical ability to shed bad contracts and make over their very few contractual mistakes.
Release waivers are on MLB transactions.
Wow. A good player they just gave away.
where do you play him? Trade deadline is passed. Bad signing, period.
The rays have spent way too much money lately on injured guys with the hope they will come back full strength. Small market teams can’t afford to have payroll tied up on the IL.
“A good player they just gave”…I’m guessing that the Rays’ track record of player acquisitions and transactions is a bit more extensive than your own.
Pennies: pinched. Nice little parting gift, Stu.
This was probably the only time they were going to get anyone to take on that underwater contract.
The Carson Williams era is underway.
he’s injured all the time, does very little when he is in…they should never have signed him ffs. This isn’t about pinching pennies lol, but “narrative”.
He was really bad with the rays but Stu has to keep those pennies to put that towards his bank account
smart by the rays and it worked out. they have no need for Kim next year and he is definitely not getting 16m in the market so he’s exercising that option.
smart by the rays to dump him, but why sign him in the first place? Putting out a fire you started does not make you a hero…
Could be a smart move by the Braves, but I’m not convinced. Kim’s closing in on his 30th birthday and the injuries are piling up. It’s a lot of money, after all.
I’m sad it didn’t work out, but Carson Williams is the SS of the future. This gets us out from this contract so we can get young / healthy at SS. Hopefully it lets us retain and (I’m going out on a limb here) resign Lowe. New ownership can’t come soon enough.
Yeah, Atlanta picked him up for that playoff push… Oh wait…
Sick burn bro…
What a waste of a signing, roster spot, and money. The Rays had Walls and Caballero, with the top prospect in AAA ready to come up…and they signed Kim? Another in a long list of bad signings/trades by the current RFO, it is no coincidence this will be the second year in a row outside the playoffs.
Agree. Their FO hasn’t been the same since Bendix, Click, Bloom, and a lot of their other front office people have been poached. They’ve had a lot more misses than hits lately.
Lol at paying Kim $16 mil but won’t pay Swanson $25 mil per season.
This is why the Braves are in a swift decline, not that many of the fans on this site will ever take their head out of the sand to be honest about it.
16 for one year is a lot different than 25 for a plethora of years
$25 million per year for a .250 hitter?
No thanks! I hope the best for Kim.
And Swanson has already been worth it for half the contract while we watch Arcia, Allen, and now Kim flail away at every pitch thrown to them.
Great response guys! Let’s just load up on a bunch of 1 year deals of low-to-no talent players…. Wait we already do that! But hey it’s only 1 year, just to repeat the process all over again the next year.
At some point that method is not just 1 year when you repeat it every year and fail to execute. And sure the method isn’t always applied to SS, the Braves like to shuffle it around to various positions for equality’s sake.
Dallas Keuchel, Cole Hamels, Drew Smyly, Charlie Morton all say hello. Soler was technically a trade with two years left but can also count in this bucket.
Then you have the 1-year by committee approach to fill the outfield when he signs guys like Adam Duvall, Eddie Rosario, and Kevin Pillar for $5-10 mil each hoping one of them breaks out to fill 1 spot instead of just pooling those funds into 1 reliable player.
AA is the worst GM in the league who dumb lucked his way into a WS just throwing a bunch of garbage together that magically all had career years at the same time. You can see how that method does not work out every year since because that’s all he knows how to do. We could repeat this for 100 years and never strike that magic again. That year wasn’t good GM work despite that some of you will try to argue otherwise.
‘AA is the worst GM in the league’ — oh boy, my heart aches for the pillow you scream into. How fans around the league wish they had a GM that ‘dumb-lucked’ their way into a WS. Honestly, who cares how it happened? It was followed up by a 2023 historic offensive season, and bad luck ever since.
‘That year wasn’t good GM work’ — by what measure? They won the World Series and did something no team in history has ever done…being under .500 in August and then winning the whole thing. And that same year they lost their best player and presumed MVP finalist (Acuña) when he went down. And won the whole thing…! It really says something that even when they achieve the success, there are ‘fans’ that won’t give them props because they didn’t do it their way. Goodness. Find another team and be the cinderblock for their fanbase.
@Run DMC: Rebuild 2025 changed his screen name when he got banned, but his rant’s remain the same.
I feel sad for you. I really do. I am sorry you feel so much it has twisted the facts to these nonsensical vents. Dans is not worth the money he is being paid. I am glad he got his bag. Dans plays in the same city as his girl, good for him. By 27 the Braves will have a home grown SS. It is not about not liking Dans it is just in this market he is over paid. AA did not break the bank on Dans one great year. I am sorry you don’t see AA as a top 5 GM.
“….his rants…..” Not sure where I got that bad apostrophe.
This is a really stupid comparison. First of all it’s a 16 million player option. Second, it’s one year. Swanson is more than 25 million a year for the next 4. I still will never understand Braves fans and their obsession with overpaying players into their down years because of “feelings”.
only the dumb ones
If the Braves did sign these guys and had no more money to spend then they’d be complaining about the team blowing all their money on a couple of overpriced FAs.
@Getgone2: 2029Braves/Rebuild 2025 (and his other screen names) doesn’t speak for Braves fans. Certainly doesn’t for me.
LOL at not moving on. 28 other teams didn’t pay Swanson 25M AAV, but Braves are the only ones being called out for it? Congrats on his bat barely being average this year (108 OPS+), but his defense has taken a significant step back in Year 3 with only 2 OAA (17 in ’24).
Kim is 3 years younger than Swanson and when healthy, his bat is more consistent (with a batter OBP), while great defense. This is the same formula as Chris Sale (minus giving up a prospect), in paying some for the risk because of their upside.
There is risk involved, but like Sale, there could also be a lot of value. There is NO value in Swanson’s deal.
The Cubs have gotten 13.1 bWAR from Swanson since 2023. I’d say that’s pretty good value.
Let’s revisit it as a 34 and 35 y/o SS
Well, yeah. Predicting is hard, especially when it involves the future. But Swanson is hardly showing obvious signs of decline. He’s got a .720 OPS in what has become a brutal park for hitters. Check Wrigley’s recent park factors if you don’t believe me.
I also don’t buy the decline story about his glove. Baseball Reference sees no decline at all as Swanson is closing in on a five WAR year. From the eye test, I agree. Swanson still looks like a really good shortstop.
Sure, he could fall off a cliff next year. But there’s little or no indication of imminent doom.
@CaseyAbell — IMHO, BR does not do a good job of quantifying defense, which is why you can look at Fangraphs and there is so much difference in his fWAR of 2.7 vs. bWAR (4.0). Defense has been his saving grace (thank you, Wash), but his bat has always been the detriment (it took 6 full seasons before he ever his average 100 OPS+ in ATL). He’s been better offensively than last season, but not as much of an increase as the decrease in his defense. He’s battled through some injuries this year, but that could mean an alarming trend on someone about to hit 32 y/o.
That being said, CHC was fine with an overpay, because he has a lot of intangibles and a great piece to build around for their incoming prospects.
To be fair though Kim is only 1 year for the $16m next year. While Swanson is $25m a year for 7 years.
The Braves didn’t want to pay Swanson $25M per season for SEVEN years. Good thing too. Lol at you for not understanding the Cubs would shed his underwater deal in a heartbeat if they had the chance. Rebuild 2025 at it again.
“Lol at paying Kim $16″…So, they won’t do a bad signing and you wonder why they won’t do an even worse signing by tethering themselves to a $25M/yr contract for a decent, but not spectacular player?
By the way how many World Series has your team won or played in the last 5-8 years?
Between Jansen and Kim they shed about 30 mil. : Houser?
This site is becoming unbearable with those ads that encompass the perimeter of your screen. I can handle the other ones but these ones are godawful
The Braves have been desperate for a SS upgrade since Dansby left. They were never gonna spend the money to get any of the top free agent options. I wanted them to sign Kim last offseason. Hopefully he gets healthy and is back to his productive self next year.
Kim is an interesting lottery ticket. He played really well in SD.
But it’s a $16 million lottery ticket so in surprised Atlanta took him.
…I like the odds better than the 17M Kelenic lottery ticket. As they promote AAA OF around him to leave him languishing in Gwinnett. Whew!
The Braves will have to sell Girl Scout Cookies and Lemonade at their recently acquired office buildings to help with the $16M owed to Kim next year. This must be from the dry powder to spend they were talking about way before the trade deadline.
Who said he’d get a 9 figure salary…that’s ridiculous?!
Some scream for the Rays to sign higher priced free agents, yet every time they do, it’s a disaster. They were fortunate to get out from under Kim’s.
It was apparent that by not trading Brandon “particularly terrible this year” Lowe and the other members of the MLBTR Three (or Four if you throw in a starting pitcher from column A) the team was looking at a one-year competitive window in ’26. A fully healed Kim would be great , but with that and the Jansen money they might be able to lengthen their lineup or get a serviceable starter to replace Littell. At this point there’s no proof one way or another on Williams as an immediate asset but with Kim gone there are a lot more ways to win.
The Kim contact wasn’t “odd” any more than Jansen’s, which has worked out fine.. Kim’s 16 will come in handy.
No way the Braves pay Kim 16 million next year. He will probably be released. Just seeing what he can do these last few weeks.
They can’t release him w/out paying him if Kim exercises his player option Mercenary.
Will Kim actually decline his option and head into free agency with what may be less than 50 games played this season and expect to make more than the $16 million he would get with option? Could be a nice early off-season present for the Braves
I guess the Bo Bichette dream is dead. Where else can they upgrade offensively in the offseason? Maybe 2B and DH.
Albies looks like he’s close to fully recovering from his broken wrist. It’s taken a year, but Hyer mentioned recently that Albies has regained most of the strength back. He’s been tearing the cover off the ball recently. They’ll exercise his option. Bo Bichette dream? Might have been a nightmare being stuck w/the deal he’s probably going to get in free agency—-especially the length of it. DH? Can see that as possibility. Hope they don’t count on Murphy as half of a DH time share. Wondering if Acuna gets time @DH w/Baldwin and the Braves sign a decent 4th of’er.
Could be a rare situation in which everyone wins. Kim triggers his option, plays well for ATL, Tampa happy to not spend, etc.
This article taught me who millionaire Tyler Kinley is. Well done.
1/16 is a decent deal for HSK considering the slim pickings at SS. Maybe the medicals are a mess, but id have thought TB could’ve flipped him for something this off-season