Kim Do-young Just Took Over October. Could He Be Korea’s Next $100 Million MLB Star?
Three home runs against LG. A 145.8-meter grand slam. And a $113 million precedent named Jung Hoo Lee. Korea’s biggest young baseball star is giving MLB fans another name to remember.
The last time we talked about Kim Do-young, the question was about what might come next.
Could he reach 40 home runs?
Could he help South Korea win Asian Games gold?
And eventually:
Could Major League Baseball be waiting?
A few weeks later, we have some answers.
Kim finished the 2026 KBO regular season with 45 home runs, the most in the league.
At the Asian Games in Japan, he delivered the go-ahead hit in the eighth inning of the gold-medal game against Japan as South Korea won 3-1.
And then October arrived.
That may have been his loudest statement yet.
Kim Do-young Did Not Just Beat LG. He Took Over the Series.
KIA faced the LG Twins in the 2026 KBO postseason semi-playoff.
The series lasted only three games.
KIA won all three.
And Kim Do-young was right in the middle of almost everything.
He finished the series with three home runs, eight RBIs and four runs scored in nine at-bats, earning series MVP honors.
Even stranger?
All three of his hits were home runs.
In Game 1, Kim hit two home runs and drove in four.
Then came Game 3 at Jamsil Baseball Stadium.
KIA already had LG under pressure when Kim stepped to the plate in the second inning with the bases loaded.
He connected.
The ball did not simply clear the fence.
It traveled 145.8 meters into the upper reaches of the outfield stands.
A grand slam.
The blast tied the longest measured home run in KBO postseason history, matching a mark associated with former Doosan slugger Tyrone Woods.
Its exit velocity was measured at roughly 179 kilometers per hour.
KIA eventually won the game 13-1.
Series over.
LG eliminated.
Kim named MVP.
At just 23 years old.
And It Started Before the Playoffs
There is another detail that makes the story even better.
Kim was already hurting LG before the postseason started.
On October 12, in KIA’s final regular-season game against the Twins, he hit a go-ahead two-run home run in the eighth inning.
It was his 45th homer of the season.
That home run helped KIA secure third place.
Then five days later, KIA met LG again.
Kim hit two more home runs.
Three days after that, he ended LG’s season with a massive grand slam.
Over a very short stretch, some of the most important swings of KIA’s season came from the same bat against the same opponent.
This is the part statistics do not entirely explain.
There are great regular-season players.
And then there are players who seem to become larger when the games become more important.
Kim Do-young is beginning to build that reputation.
The 45 Home Runs Matter Even More
The postseason performance would be impressive by itself.
But this was not a random hot week.
Kim’s 2026 regular season was already extraordinary.
In 135 games, he hit:
.308 with 45 home runs, 118 RBIs and 120 runs scored.
His on-base percentage was .413.
His slugging percentage was .647.
And his 45 home runs led the KBO.
For context, this came after a 2024 season in which Kim hit .347 with 38 home runs and 40 stolen bases before injuries limited him to only 30 games in 2025.
So 2026 was not simply a breakout.
It was a comeback.
And at age 23, the question around Kim has started to change.
It used to be:
How good can he become in Korea?
Now it is increasingly:
How would this translate somewhere else?
Which Brings Us to Jung Hoo Lee
Korean baseball already has a useful modern example.
Jung Hoo Lee.
After seven seasons with the Kiwoom Heroes, Lee was posted to MLB following the 2023 season.
The San Francisco Giants gave him a six-year, $113 million contract.
With the posting fee owed to Kiwoom included, San Francisco’s total commitment approached $132 million.
That deal was important far beyond Lee himself.
It showed that an elite KBO position player did not have to arrive in Major League Baseball as a cheap experiment.
A Korean hitter could command a nine-figure commitment.
But Kim Do-young is not simply “the next Jung Hoo Lee.”
They are very different players.
And that is what makes the comparison interesting.
Jung Hoo Lee and Kim Do-young Offer Different Things
Lee built his reputation around elite contact.
In his 2022 KBO MVP season, he hit .349 with 23 home runs and struck out only 32 times in 627 plate appearances.
The Giants saw a hitter with exceptional bat-to-ball ability, speed and athleticism who could play center field.
Kim’s profile is different.
He is an infielder, primarily associated with third base, and his offensive calling card is increasingly power.
Forty-five home runs changes the conversation.
An athletic infielder in his early 20s who can hit for average, get on base and produce elite home-run power represents a different kind of upside.
FanGraphs currently lists Kim on its international player board as a third baseman, with a projected future value grade of 45+.
That does not mean an MLB contract is coming tomorrow.
FanGraphs is not an MLB team.
And a prospect grade is certainly not a contract prediction.
But it does show that Kim is already being evaluated within the broader international talent conversation outside Korea.
Could Kim Do-young Be Worth More Than Jung Hoo Lee?
This is where it is easy to get carried away.
So let’s slow down.
Maybe.
But there is nowhere near enough information yet to say that confidently.
Lee’s $113 million contract was based on the market that existed when he became available, his track record, his age, his position and how the Giants projected his skills against MLB pitching.
When Kim eventually becomes available, all of those variables will be different.
What we can say is that Kim offers something MLB teams value enormously:
power from an athletic infield position.
If he can remain a credible third baseman — or demonstrate defensive flexibility elsewhere in the infield — while maintaining elite offensive production, that combination would be highly attractive.
But that “if” matters.
Major League teams would need answers to several questions.
Can he consistently handle MLB velocity?
Will his power translate from the KBO to Major League pitching?
Where is his long-term defensive position?
Can he stay healthy?
And can he maintain this production for multiple seasons rather than one spectacular year?
Those questions will matter far more than simply counting his KBO home runs.
The Infield Question Could Be Important
This is one reason Kim may generate a different type of interest than Lee.
Lee entered MLB as an outfielder whose strongest offensive skill was contact.
Kim could potentially arrive as a power-hitting third baseman.
Those profiles are valued differently.
An MLB team that believes Kim can stay on the dirt is not simply evaluating a hitter.
It is evaluating the possibility of getting middle-of-the-order offense from an infield position.
That carries value.
But if evaluators ultimately decide his defense does not translate and he must move down the defensive spectrum, the calculation changes.
So calling Kim “more valuable than Lee” simply because he is an infielder would be premature.
The more accurate statement is:
His combination of age, power and position gives MLB evaluators a very interesting question to solve.
There Is Also the Matter of Timing
Kim cannot simply announce tomorrow that he wants to play for the Yankees, Dodgers or Giants.
KBO players who have not yet reached full international free agency generally need to go through the posting system, with the approval of their Korean club.
Under the Korean posting structure, players can become eligible for overseas posting after accumulating the required KBO service, while players with nine years of professional experience can reach international free agency.
Kim debuted with KIA in 2022.
Because injuries affected his roster time in 2025, his exact future posting timetable also depends on credited service days, including credits accumulated through national-team participation.
That means this is not a story about Kim leaving Korea next winter.
There is still time.
And that might actually make his story more interesting.
MLB evaluators will have more seasons to watch him.
Kim will have more opportunities to prove that 45 home runs were not a one-year peak.
The Asian Games Changed One Part of the Equation
When we last checked in on Kim, the 2026 Asian Games were still part of the story.
He went to Japan with enormous expectations.
The tournament itself was not statistically dominant.
Kim hit .250 across six games and did not hit a home run.
By his own standards, he was disappointed.
But when Korea needed the biggest hit of the tournament, he delivered it.
With the gold-medal game against Japan tied 1-1 in the eighth inning, Kim drove home the go-ahead run.
South Korea went on to win 3-1 and claim its fifth consecutive Asian Games baseball gold medal.
Less than a month later, he was back in Korea.
Then came LG.
Then came three postseason home runs.
Then came that grand slam.
For a player who felt he had underperformed on the international stage, October looked like a rather emphatic response.
The $113 Million Number Is a Benchmark, Not a Prediction
This distinction matters.
Jung Hoo Lee’s contract gives us something useful.
A reference point.
It tells us that MLB teams have already demonstrated a willingness to commit more than $100 million to an elite Korean position player.
It does not tell us that Kim Do-young will receive $100 million.
Or $150 million.
Or more than Lee.
By the time Kim becomes available, the baseball market could look completely different.
His performance could rise.
It could fall.
His defensive position could become clearer.
Injuries could change things.
And MLB teams will have years of additional data.
But Lee’s deal changed one psychological barrier.
A nine-figure contract for a KBO hitter is no longer theoretical.
It has happened.
So when a 23-year-old infielder leads the KBO with 45 home runs and then destroys a postseason series with three more?
The question is no longer ridiculous.
First, There Is Still October
There is also something slightly absurd about talking this much about Major League Baseball right now.
Kim has games left to play in Korea.
KIA’s reward for sweeping LG is a playoff series against the Samsung Lions beginning October 25.
And Samsung has reason to pay attention.
Kim hit nine home runs in 16 regular-season games against Samsung this year, batting .306 with 20 RBIs.
So the MLB conversation can wait.
At least for a few days.
Right now, Kim Do-young is trying to take KIA back to the Korean Series.
Korea Already Knows His Name
For international baseball fans, Kim Do-young may still be a player they are discovering.
In Korea, that stage has passed.
He was already the 2024 KBO MVP.
He already had the historic 30-home-run, 30-stolen-base season.
Then came the injury-shortened 2025.
Then 45 home runs in 2026.
Then Asian Games gold.
Now a postseason MVP performance.
At some point, a promising player stops being a future star.
He simply becomes a star.
Kim appears to have crossed that line.
So, Is MLB Next?
Not yet.
That is the responsible answer.
Kim Do-young still has KBO service requirements to complete.
He still has more seasons to prove himself.
And no one can responsibly predict the size of a future MLB contract years in advance.
But that is no longer the most interesting part of the question.
The interesting part is that the comparison now exists at all.
A few years ago, asking whether a Korean position player could receive more than $100 million from an MLB team sounded ambitious.
Then Jung Hoo Lee signed for $113 million.
Now Korea has a 23-year-old infielder who just led the KBO with 45 home runs and followed it with three postseason homers in three games.
One of them traveled 145.8 meters.
So perhaps the question should not be:
“Will Kim Do-young be better than Jung Hoo Lee?”
They are different players.
A better question is:
“What happens if Korea sends MLB an entirely different kind of star next?”
The last time we wrote about Kim Do-young, MLB felt like a question for the future.
After what he just did in October?
That future suddenly feels a little closer.