Dillon Atkinson: A decision must be made regarding Kim

When an outfielder on a ballclub has made eight starts in the team's 43 games, what role would you think he has? Would you think he was a right-handed hitting platoon outfielder who only started against left-handed pitchers? Would you think he was a fourth outfielder whose primary use was as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement late in games? I would assume one of the two, but neither is the case with the Orioles. In this situation, this is left-handed hitting left fielder Hyun Soo Kim.

Kim is making $2.8 million this season as a part of his two-year, $7 million contract he signed this past winter, and is scheduled to make $4.2 million next season, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts. He had a rough spring training, in which the Orioles publicly said the Korean-born outfielder would not make the ballclub. Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette hoped Kim would accept an assignment to Triple-A Norfolk, but Kim refused. And as a result, the Orioles decided to keep him on their 25-man roster to break camp.

Kim has started in eight games and appeared as a pinch-hitter in four games for the Orioles so far this season. Those off-the-bench substitutions have mainly come in big run differential games. In his time at the plate this season, he has done his job, slashing .379/.455/.414 with a 147 wRC+ over 33 plate appearances. Over the small sample size, he has a 37-percent softly hit rate, a 70.4-percent groundball rate, and a 21.1-percent infield hit rate. He has certainly been the king of the "Baltimore Chop" thus far. Over time, he could start seeing the ball better and hitting the ball harder, but it's hard to see the potential when he's not only averaging one game started per week, but also hasn't seen the field since last Wednesday, May 18 against the Seattle Mariners.

I don't want to say that Kim has been necessarily useless, because he has done a decent job when he actually is in, but he certainly can't be all that useful when he's very rarely being used at all. The 28-year-old outfielder serves absolutely no purpose on the bench and actually hurts the team more when he's not playing than he does when he is.

Aside from Kim, the Orioles run with three other bench players: Caleb Joseph, Nolan Reimold and one of Ryan Flaherty and Paul Janish. The purpose of Joseph is to be the backup catcher, and he has actually been seeing more playing time than a normal backup catcher usually would. Reimold is a platoon bat who gets playing time against left-handed pitchers, and he has also been used late in games a defensive substitution and pinch-runner. Whoever is on the bench between Janish and Flaherty is serving the role as the utility infielder. Both carry a good glove - especially Janish - and can be used as a defensive replacement late in games.

What does Kim offer while he's on the bench? He isn't going to pinch-run or pinch-hit for anybody, and he isn't going to see the field late in ball games as a defensive replacement. Unless it's a blowout and Showalter just wants to give Kim a painless at-bat, Kim is not going to be thought of as an option off the bench in any late-game situation. If he isn't in the starting lineup, you aren't going to see him at all that night unless he's high-fiving his teammates.

So, what do you do with him? By continuing to keep him on the bench, you're essentially committing to a three-man bench. I think the Orioles have two options: Give him more playing time or get rid of him. If you want to start him, you could give him more playing time over one of Joey Rickard or Pedro Alvarez, who both haven't been too hot at the plate. Alvarez is slashing .191/.300/.351 with a 77 wRC+ on the season, and Rickard is slashing .259/.309/.373 with an 86 wRC+ on the year with a .233/.317/.342 slash line and 84 wRC+ in the month of May. By starting over either of these guys to test things over for a few games, Kim can't really hurt the team.

However, if Showalter wants to be done with Kim, then let him go. Offer the minor league assignment again. If Kim declines, work out a deal that will send him back to Korea. By getting rid of Kim, the Orioles would be able to search for - or call up from the minors - a player who would serve a key purpose on the bench and wouldn't be completely absent every game that he's not in the starting lineup.

It's pretty simple here - use him or lose him. What do you say?

Dillon Atkinson blogs about the Orioles for Orioles Uncensored. Follow him on Twitter: @DAtkinsonOU. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.