Kim Sung-jun

Seong-Jun Kim (often styled Kim Sung-jun in Korean media) was born on 1 May 2007 in Gwangju, South Korea. At Gwangju Ilgo High School he drew “Korean Ohtani” headlines for throwing upper-90s heat while also playing shortstop — enough that he projected as a high KBO draft pick if he stayed home.

Texas signed him in May 2025 for roughly $1.2 million after missing out on other international targets, and built a two-way development plan modeled on how Japanese clubs once handled two-way workloads. He appeared briefly in the Dominican Summer League, finished high school, then returned for a full ACL season pitching about once a week and playing the infield on other days.

He is still a teenager in Rookie ball, so the story is development, not big-league readiness. What matters for Korea’s MLB pipeline is that clubs are willing to buy high-school two-way talent directly rather than waiting only on KBO posting stars — and that Texas is actually letting him throw and hit on a published schedule.

Most two-way experiments end with a quiet choice: pitcher or hitter. The reason to keep watching Kim is whether Texas resists that choice long enough for the tools to catch up to the nickname. If they do, Korea’s export story gets a new lane. If they do not, he still may become a useful big-leaguer — just a more ordinary one than the headlines promised.