Reporter Oh Sang-jin= Kim Ha-seong (28-San Diego Padres), who is enjoying his best season in his third year in the major leagues, has been rated as one of the top five players in the league.

ESPN, an American sports media company, ranked the MVP candidates in the American League (AL) and National League (NL) in the middle of the pack through its own ranking program, AXE (Award Index).

In the AL, Shohei Ohtani continues his virtual dominance. With an AXE rating of 168.1, Ohtani tops the list by a wide margin over second-place Corey Seager (Texas Rangers, 139.1). Media outlets have been using the phrase “Ohtani a lock,” referring to the possibility of a unanimous MVP award.

Unlike the AL, where Ohtani is dominating, the NL is still a tight MVP race. The media has Ronald Acuña Jr. (Atlanta Braves) at the top with an AXE rating of 147.1, with second-place Mookie Betts (Los Angeles Dodgers, 145.7) as a strong challenger. Freddie Freeman (Dodgers, 143.9) was third, and Matt Olson (Atlanta, 133.9) was fourth.

In the middle of the pack, Ha-Sung Kim was ranked fifth, behind four strong MVP candidates. He finished fifth, just 0.1 behind Olson, who led the majors in home runs with an AXE of 133.8. Considering that the players behind Kim are Corbin Carroll (Arizona Diamondbacks), Francisco Lindor (New York Mets), Christian Walker (Arizona), Cody Bellinger (Chicago Cubs), and Juan Soto (San Diego), it’s easy to see where Kim is coming from this season.

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Kim Ha-seong was also mentioned in the MVP mock poll released by MLB.com, the official website of Major League Baseball, on the 9th, although the specific scores were not disclosed. On the 16th, he was mentioned as a “dark horse” alongside Bellinger and Soto in FOX Sports’ MVP predictions.

At the beginning of the season, Kim’s performance was more focused on his defense, but after a strong first half, he continued to play well in the second half and is now recognized locally as a utility player who can play both offense and defense.

With a .281 batting average, 15 home runs, 42 RBIs, 27 doubles, and an OPS of 0.813 in 117 games through Aug. 18 (KST), Kim doesn’t seem like an overwhelming favorite to win NL MVP. However, the fact that he has been consistently mentioned in local media as a candidate since the second half of the season is significant.바카라사이트

The way things are going, he’s got a shot at the record for most votes and highest ranking in a Korean major league MVP ballot. Only two other Korean major leaguers have ever received votes in the MVP voting, Shin-Soo Choo (SSG Rangers) and Ryu Hyun-jin (Toronto Blue Jays). Of those two, Shin-Soo Choo’s 2013 NL MVP balloting with Cincinnati was his highest vote total and highest placement, as he received 23 points (one sixth-place vote, one seventh-place vote, one eighth-place vote, four ninth-place votes, and three 10th-place votes) to finish 12th. If Kim continues his current pace through the end of the season, he could become the first Korean major leaguer to finish in the top 10 of the MVP voting.